Around 11:30 a.m., June 11, Ontario farmer-politician Lyle Vanclief stood in Government House, the residence of the Governor General, and read words he has dreamed about for years.
“I, Lyle Vanclief, do solemnly and sincerely promise and swear that I will truly and faithfully and to the best of my skill and knowledge, execute the powers and trusts reposed in me as minister of agriculture and agri-food.
“So help me God.”
In the moments before, standing in an anteroom, he talked quietly with fellow Ontario Liberal Andy Mitchell, rewarded with a junior cabinet position for defeating Tory star Lewis Mackenzie in the Parry Sound-Muskoka riding.
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In the last Parliament, Mitchell chaired a House of Commons committee that issued a call to action for government policy in rural Canada.
The two nervous newcomers talked about challenges in rural Canada.
Then, it was the trip into the main hall, where the 1983 Outstanding Young Farmer Award winner from Prince Edward County stood before the country’s top bureaucrat to swear the oath of allegiance, the oath of secrecy needed for admission to the Privy Council and the oath of office quoted above.
Finally, the prime minister presented him to Governor General Romeo LeBlanc for the handshake welcoming him to the realm of Canadian advisers to the Queen and ministers of the government. It had been a long journey for Vanclief – a lifetime of farming, nine years in the House of Commons and a near-miss for a cabinet appointment in 1993.
Then, pomp and ceremony behind him, Vanclief walked out of Government House with wife Sharon beside him and deputy agriculture minister Frank Claydon in tow.
In the bright sunshine, he was ambushed by a clutch of reporters who wanted to know how he felt, what he would do, what he thought.
Vanclief handled the questions deftly enough, befitting a politician accustomed to Ottawa’s secondary political spotlight as an Opposition critic, then a government parliamentary secretary and finally chair of the agriculture committee.
One question from a CBC reporter seemed to set him aback just briefly.
Is being an expert in agriculture a good or bad thing?
“Agriculture is such a complex and diverse industry that I certainly see it as an asset,” replied the new minister. “I can brag there probably is not a part of this country that you can take me … that in our farming operation in the past, we were not involved in that type of production, whether it be fruit and vegetables, processing, grains, livestock or whatever.”
It was an ambitious claim that goes unchallenged. On this day, a little bragging is allowed. There will be days when the job will seem less inviting, reporters’ questions will have more of an edge and critics will be in full throat.
But June 11, 106 years to the day since Ontario’s first great federal politician Sir John A. Macdonald was buried, Vanclief was walking on air.
“Good luck,” said a reporter, knowing he will need much more than that.
