THERE was a time when some senior Agriculture Canada insiders thought the odds of Gerry Ritz returning as agriculture minister in the new Stephen Harper government was no better than 50 percent.
Outside the department, the odds were much longer.
After all, for days during the campaign, fallout from his thought-to-be-private jokes during tense briefings about deaths and illnesses from listeria threw the Conservative election campaign off message and resulted in Ritz virtually disappearing from the campaign. It was assumed that prime minister Harper was not pleased.
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In fact, when Harper came to Saskatoon in late September for an announcement, he was surrounded by all his area MPs and candidates with one glaring exception: Ritz.
That was widely seen as a sign that the minister had been put under a form of political house arrest.
So why was Ritz taking the oath of office for a second time Oct. 30 against the odds?
There are obvious reasons and some not so obvious.
For starters, there is his track record. During the 14 months he has been minister, Ritz caused Harper no problems, listeria jokes aside. He negotiated the details of the new policy framework with the provinces, restored a measure of federal-provincial harmony that had been strained under his predecessor Chuck Strahl and vigorously pursued one of Harper’s longstanding objectives – trying to dismantle the Canadian Wheat Board monopoly.
And since Canadian farmers and rural Canadians voted overwhelmingly Conservative in the Oct. 14 election, there was no obvious discontent over Ritz’s performance.
Besides, among Saskatchewan’s other 12 Conservative MPs, there were no obvious strong candidates to replace him as a senior minister.
Then there was the context of the listeriosis incident. Ritz was a surprise choice to be the government’s public face during the crisis when tainted meat from a Maple Leaf plant in Toronto made hundreds sick and eventually killed at least 20 Canadians.
The union representing government inspectors, as well as the political opposition, alleged that cutbacks in inspections by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency were behind the crisis so in one way, it was logical that the minister responsible for CFIA be involved.
But at its core, it was a health issue and health minister Tony Clement had experience in health crisis management. As Ontario’s health minister, he had dealt effectively with the SARS crisis. Still, Clement was kept away from the file, at least in public.
Some inside the drama thought Ritz was out of his depth. He seemed tired, nervous and a bit peeved that he had been ordered to stay in Ottawa at the centre of the storm.
In retrospect, Harper may have felt some sympathy for his minister, may have thought he had been set up.
Then came the joke and a few weeks later the leak. Harper may have been angry at the impact it had on his campaign plan but undoubtedly, his anger was more directed at the anonymous official who did the leaking, perhaps seeing the hand of an anti-Conservative union member at work.
Harper probably wanted to make the point that he will not be pushed around by anonymous leakers from within the government. Point made.
