Western Producer staff
Several weeks ago, former agriculture minister Eugene Whelan was invited to appear before a parliamentary committee studying the future policy needs of the food industry.
The life-long Liberal warrior planned it as a tour de force, a history lesson from the old master that would point his neophyte disciples toward a future he could endorse.
Instead, it became a striking indication of how far the ChrŽtien Liberals have moved away from their old ways in the decade since they were last in power.
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In some ways, it was sad.
True, MPs of all parties (all of whom were elected after Whelan left the House of Commons in 1984) treated him with the respect an icon deserves.
But they seemed largely unimpressed by his suggestions, most of which were defences of what he and previous Liberal governments had built.
Any question about the future was met with a response that dwelt on why the Canadian Wheat Board or supply management boards were created.
He raged against free-trade deals, including the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, as an erosion of Canadian sovereignty and a shift of power to corporations. There were tales from the past, like the first day he spoke to then-rookie Tory MP Bill McKnight in 1979. (“I remember that like yesterday.”)
There were precious few suggestions about the proper course of future policy, as one ranking Liberal told him directly.
“I appreciate very much the comments you have made this morning, but, Mr. Whelan, you have not really given us much suggestion and direction as a committee on realizing the realities we have today,” said Lyle Vanclief, parliamentary secretary to agriculture minister Ralph Goodale.
And there was the rub. The current crop of Liberals are largely unrecognizable as members of a party that Whelan would want to join.
They support free trade, plan to dismantle the traditional Prairie grain transportation subsidy, and will sharply cut farm supports.
It is not the same Liberal Party that created Canagrex, believed in government intervention and harbored a deep distrust of American-controlled companies.
Whelan seemed to realize it and that was when pathos entered the proceedings.
He complained that he had only briefed Goodale once on his ideas and that was at Whelan’s request.
In almost a year, the Liberal government of his old friend Jean ChrŽtien had never called. “Sometimes I get really hurt by the very fact that I haven’t been asked to do very much,” he admitted.
“I was hurt that I wasn’t asked because I’ve spent my life dedicated to agriculture and in a democracy, that a party wouldn’t ask you, even if you differed politically with them, wouldn’t ask you for your advice, wouldn’t do anything with you whatsoever.”
He noted that Maclean’s magazine once called him “Canada’s greatest unused resource” and complained that he had not been asked by the government to serve on its “Blue Ribbon Commission” studying the Canada-U.S. wheat issue.
