ST. ANDREWS-BY-THE-SEA, N.B. — Federal agriculture minister Gerry Ritz has a reputation among his political detractors as a take-no-prisoners, bare-knuckle bully.
In the House of Commons, he never gives ground.
During his first speech to the Canadian Federation of Agriculture in 2008, Ritz essentially told them that on the crucial Canadian Wheat Board file, the largest farm lobby in the country was irrelevant because it did not endorse his determination to end the single desk.
Since then, the CFA has more or less made nice with the minister.
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Political critics insist the farm lobby has largely fallen silent (the National Farmers Union being a notable exception but then he does not talk to them) because they are afraid that if they cross the minister, they will be shut out of influence.
For whatever reason, Ritz presides over a politically calm period in agricultural politics as he nears his fourth anniversary as minister. Farm groups mainly seem anxious to get along with him.
So it is on the federal-provincial side of the political spectrum.
These days, agriculture ministers emerge from their annual meetings filled with words of co-operation and praise for the federal minister.
Of course, there are tensions inside the meeting room where probing reporters are not allowed.
When ministers emerged from their two-day meeting in this picturesque ocean-side resort town July 8, clearly there had been some private disputes.
Ontario minister Carol Mitchell refused to endorse agreement on the next Growing Forward policy framework because it does not support Ontario’s insistence that provincially designed farm support programs should receive federal support.
And it was clear Ritz and Manitoba minister Stan Struthers had squared off over the wheat board issue in a heated private exchange. They even exchanged a few barbs in public.
But the tone at the closing news conference was friendly and collegial.
Mitchell did not stay to voice Ontario’s displeasure.
And Struthers, while saying he thinks Ritz is on the wrong course on the wheat board, praised the federal minister for his “frankness” in the discussion.
Ritz seems to have guided the federal-provincial discussion from a clash of ideologies and jurisdictions to a brotherhood rowing more or less in the same direction, proclaiming the same farm policy goals. Where there are disputes, they are respectful and between family.
It was not always thus.
In the 1970s and early 1980s, these gatherings often were very public clashes between federal minister Eugene Whelan with his musings about more interventionist programs and a marketing board for cattle and Conservative Alberta ministers trying to keep the eastern meddlers at bay.
In the late 1980s, federal-provincial sparks flew when Conservative minister Don Mazankowski read the riot act because he thought the provinces were not paying their share of costs.
Liberal Lyle Vanclief and then Saskatchewan NDP minister Dwain Lingenfelter waged epic battles that once saw the Saskatchewan minister storm out of a meeting in Ottawa to call a news conference announcing he was going home.
There was constant and very public wrangling over whether some provinces were getting short-changed in the federal division of farm support payments
In Whistler, B.C, in 2007, federal Conservative minister Chuck Strahl and Saskatchewan New Democrat Mark Wartman clashed repeatedly, exchanging some barbed comments about each other in public.
In contrast, the Ritz era so far has been one of co-operation and smiles. Provinces, like most farm groups, are not raising a ruckus against the federal government. They generally sing from the same hymnbook about programming and where the industry should go.
There is little visible anti-federal rancor.
It must make Ritz a favourite of prime minister Stephen Harper.
