Call it the parliamentary teddy bear tempest.
When debate on government legislation to end the Canadian Wheat Board monopoly by Aug. 1, 2012 began in the House of Commons Aug. 19, many opposition MP desks were adorned with made-in-China teddy bears wearing sweaters that said “I (heart) CWB.”
They drew caustic comments from Conservatives who assumed the Board had sent them.
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“Farmers get up early in the morning,” complained Saskatchewan Conservative David Anderson, parliamentary secretary on the CWB issue and a longtime opponent of the monopoly. “Early in the spring, they go out in the mud and seed their crops. The Wheat Board takes their money and buys teddy bears.
Farmers spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on inputs. “The Wheat Board spends their money on teddy bears.
And so Anderson’s litany of complaints about the teddy bear promotion continued.
Liberal Wayne Easter, a longtime CWB defender, jumped to the bait, accusing Anderson of lying because the Canadian Wheat Board Alliance raised the money to buy and ship the teddy bears.
As part of his outburst, Easter waved his teddy bear around, a no-no in the House of Commons where MPs are not allowed to use props.
Later, after being challenged by a Conservative, Easter withdrew his unparliamentary accusation that another MP had lied but he gave his teddy (let’s call him CWBear, another turn before the cameras, waving him around while promising not to do it again.
“The government cannot bear the truth when it comes to western farmers,” Easter quipped.
Another famous bear once had a quote (well his creator A.A. Milne did) that both sides in this bitter debate could use, the Conservatives cheerfully as they close down the 68-year-old single desk, the opposition glumly as they try to preserve it.
“I used to believe in forever,” Winnie the Pooh said in Milne’s classic tale about a Winnipeg-born bear. “But forever was too good to be true.”
