Whelan triumphs with Canadian foreign aid file - Opinion

WITHIN days of being named minister of state for international co-operation early last year, Windsor, Ont., lawyer Susan Whelan decided on one of the marks she wanted to make in public life.

She wanted to re-inject agriculture and food production goals into Canadian foreign development assistance as a major priority.

Last week, it was a personal and political triumph when she announced a sharp increase in agriculture and food-dedicated aid funds over the next five years.

She won strong words of praise from Canadian farm groups and aid agencies alike, all of the non-governmental constituencies with a stake in the issue.

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It was a triumph of a strong politician over reluctant bureaucrats, an indifferent government and initially skeptical lobbyists.

How Whelan got from her original idea to making a large funding announcement that carried the support of affected interest groups might offer some lessons to other ministers who genuinely want to do good, who have constituencies who genuinely want them to do well and who face bureaucrats certain that there’s a better way to do things, whatever lobbyists say.

For this daughter of a former agriculture minister and chair of the World Food Program, promotion of agricultural development and food security were natural ingredients of Canada’s international face.

Canada, after all, hosted the founding meeting of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization in 1945 and has consistently been one of the world’s largest contributors to food aid.

So one of the first questions Whelan asked bureaucrats at the Canadian International Development Agency after she was appointed in January 2002 was where agriculture figures in CIDA programming.

“I was surprised to learn we had reduced the amount we spend,” she said last week.

Bureaucrats told her other countries had as well. Besides, the new emphasis was on medicines and micronutrients, dietary supplements, AIDS education and gender equality.

That was the priority of past ministers and the way things had progressed since Paul Martin slashed foreign aid spending in 1995. There were fewer dollars and the focus had changed.

Whelan pushed back, insisting that ways be found to get more money into agricultural development, the mainstay of most developing world economies.

Whelan launched a national consultation. She listened and insisted that bureaucrats listen too.

The result was last week’s announcement that CIDA’s agricultural funding goes from $95 million to $300 million in two years and to $500 million in five years.

It was a political triumph for Whelan.

It also shows that while she has emerged from her father’s long shadow, Whelan is a chip off the block when it comes to standing up to bureaucrats.

Her dad Eugene had a well-earned reputation for distrusting the bureaucrats at Agriculture Canada and insisting they obey him rather than their economics instincts. Among many farmers, Whelan is remembered as a minister on their side, whatever the bureaucratic opposition.

Daughter Susan is staking out some of the same ground.