AS FEDERAL agriculture minister Bob Speller’s almost-around-the-world-in-six-days tour to sell Canada’s position on bovine spongiform encephalopathy took off from Ottawa Jan. 10, the red maple leaf on the side of the Air Canada jet was far from the only symbol involved.
The trip, industry and opposition representatives in tow, was as much about showing the industry he cares as it was about expecting results.
The symbol for “I feel your pain,” whatever that is, could just as appropriately have been painted on the side of the plane heading for Seoul, South Korea via Vancouver, on route to Tokyo and Washington.
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“(The trip) is more than symbolic,” Speller insisted before he left. “We will be working hard on a bipartisan basis to put forward a strong case.”
No doubt that is true. Fine, strong arguments are built, like Guinness beer, a layer at a time.
But even Speller did not expect breakthroughs in convincing spooked or politically sensitive markets to open their arms to Canadian beef.
The audience where more immediate returns could be expected is here at home.
The hastily arranged trip was another way for the new government of Paul Martin and the new agriculture minister to distance themselves from the ancien regime of Jean Chrétien and Lyle Vanclief.
There were criticisms of the previous minister and the government for the way they handled Japanese concerns in the early days of the first BSE crisis in May 2003. Canada did not make the Japanese feel their concerns mattered, worrying more about the Americans.
In the end, the Japanese dug in and their resistance played a role in keeping the American border closed.
Now, here was Speller, not waiting for the Japanese to visit but spending the better part of two days on a plane to spend a few hours on the ground in South Korea and Japan to make the case.
Vanclief never did that.
Then there was Speller’s pledge to ask the Japanese what exactly they would have Canada do to open the market.
In the last Parliament, Canadian Alliance MPs repeatedly asked Vanclief what Japanese demands were. The minister insisted the Japanese had never presented a precise shopping list.
“Did you ever ask them?” became a favourite Alliance heckle.
Now Speller, in the presence of opposition MPs, was asking for precisely that.
Meanwhile, on the home front, Speller has been doing his best to emote concern about affected farm families, even if he has yet to produce any assurance there will be more concrete help in the future.
On questions of policy, he often begins by expressing his empathy for farm families facing uncertainty. “I can just feel how they must be feeling right now with the uncertainty,” he said when asked about the adequacy of existing safety net programs.
For all his strengths, hard work and farm experience, Vanclief never really was able to convey much empathy for farmers staring down financial crisis.
Speller is winning high early marks for doing that, for making the industry believe he cares, that he feels their pain.
Eventually, concrete actions will have to replace promises and sympathy but for the moment, the tired minister of agriculture is flying high on Air Empathy.
