EVEN with Parliament adjourned until mid-September, summer 2001 is promising to be a period of political intrigue and turmoil.
Prairie farmers have every reason to pay attention. Their future policy options and political choices could be affected.
Two Ottawa insider comments set the stage for speculation.
- When asked about autumn plans for government agriculture policy making, a senior Liberal hesitated. “It’ s hard to tell. Who will be on the agriculture committee come fall? Who will be the minister?”
Good questions.
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There is credible speculation that prime minister Jean Chrétien will announce the cabinet shuffle this summer that he did not announce after the November election.
Will Lyle Vanclief make the cut? Perhaps, but Parliament Hill speculation is that you shouldn’ t bet the farm on it.
His four years in cabinet have had their moments of triumph but he also has collected much baggage, including the animosity of some farm lobbyists over an inability to extract more farm aid from cabinet.
Vanclief also carries the burden of blame for the poorly designed Agricultural Income Disaster Assistance program and its successor, the Canadian Farm Income Protection program. The hardest hit grains and oilseeds producers tended to receive the least.
Will Chrétien appreciate Vanclief’ s efforts to convince farmers to accept less? Or will he decide a new minister with a fresh mandate is needed to win back some support in the prairie farm sector?
- As he talked about the latest defections from the Canadian Alliance bench because of questions about Stockwell Day’ s leadership, a CA aide engaged in some of the black humor that has infected Parliament Hill’ s political debate.
“On the bright side, we may be setting a parliamentary record for having the strongest back bench in history,” he said.
Indeed. Among those exiled from Day’ s inner circle and front line are some of the opposition’ s strongest performers – former deputy leader Deborah Grey, former House leader Chuck Strahl, former finance and foreign affairs critic Monte Solberg, former Human Resources department critic Val Meredith.
There is a sense that one more misstep by Day could send more of them away.
On June 18, Day stood before reporters to announce his new critics’ team and to proclaim that the Alliance caucus does not have “A” and “B” teams. They are all “A” team MPs, he said. Perhaps they are a collection of opposition diamonds in the rough but the jury remains out.
The problem is that, despite Tory delusions of grandeur, Canadian voters have determined the Alliance is the political party designated to keep the Liberals accountable, on agriculture as well as on other files.
This summer, federal and provincial agriculture ministers get serious about plotting the next generation of farm policies. Will the effort be led by the Liberal devil farmers know or by an unknown?
Will the Alliance be able to offer a credible critique or will internal leadership questions consume CA efforts?
It will be a critical farm policy summer. The politics of it are up in the air.
