That rustling sound is coming from a bag of cats - Opinion

JAMES McNeill’s famous painting, Whistler’s Mother, depicts a side view of a serene, frail old woman in a bonnet, sitting on a chair. No tension there.

Chuck Strahl’s next creation, Whistler’s Accord, may well be described in history as looking more like a sack of feuding cats than a serene old lady.

Next week, Canada’s federal, provincial and territorial agriculture ministers gather in the British Columbia resort town to try to agree on the main elements of the country’s next generation of agriculture policy.

Strahl, the genial if steel-willed federal minister, hopes the meeting produces at least agreement on principles.

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He says progress has been good, all provinces want a national framework and farmers expect no less, since the existing Agricultural Policy Framework expires March 30, 2008 unless there is an extension.

In some ways, his optimism seems well placed. Despite some divisive federal decisions in the past year on the Canadian Wheat Board and a midstream change in the Canadian Farm Family Option Program rules, there has been remarkably little acrimony in federal-provincial agricultural relations.

Leading up to the inauguration of the first APF in 2003, there were provincial walkouts and bitterness. This time there has been little farm organization bitterness.

Last time, there was much farm lobby opposition to the federal-provincial determination to ram through a plan that was ill-thought-out, killed the popular Net Income Stabilization Account program and phased out companion programs.

There also was farmer division in the build up to the last APF.

A recent call from National Farmers Union president Stewart Wells after a column identifying Canadian Federation of Agriculture president Bob Friesen as an early critic of the original APF properly pointed out that many APF opponents felt betrayed when Friesen appeared on stage with then-prime minister Jean Chrétien at the 2003 unveiling of the program.

This time, there has been relatively little public farm dissent.

But that rustling sound is the noise of provincial cats climbing into the federal sack.

And Strahl, responsible for keeping rural Canada in the Conservative camp in the buildup to the next federal election, has some mediation to do.

There is a provincial consensus that Ottawa’s insistence that a new disaster program be funded 60-40 federal-provincial is unacceptable.

There is the demand from Canada’s most important agricultural (and rural seat) province that Ontario be compensated for locally designed farm support programs.

And there is a hint from several provinces that the issue of how federal funds are allocated should be reopened.

The Fredericton Formula once said federal funds should be distributed based on the size of the provincial farm economy. That favoured larger, more stable provincial farm sectors like Ontario and Quebec.

It was trashed when provinces with more volatile farm sectors insisted funds would flow where they are needed rather than where a formula says they are deserved.

Ontario’s Leona Dombrowsky is suggesting the “Ontario fair share” will be an issue.

All of which suggests Strahl will earn his stripes (scratches?) demonstrating his ability to herd or bag cats.