Chaos Theory Extended: Minister Ritz Has Got It All Wrong
Many of you this week may have read Darin Newsom’s column where he talked about chaos theory. In it he talked about how sometimes a market can be affected by variables that nobody ever saw coming. Certainly swine flu is one of those things and it has been affecting markets this past week. However, I would add something to that. In Canada I think you could add the chaos theory to our present condition with regard to Canadian agricultural policy. With swine flu causing havoc in our markets combined with the rising Canadian dollar, about the last thing we need is more chaos theory on the policy front.
At one time in my career writing about agricultural policy was job one. However through the years I’ve changed that to a marketing focus. That’s a comment on professional direction but it is also a comment on where I think most farmers are. Farmers don’t have a lot of patience for anything to do with Canadian agriculture policy. My experience tells me that most of you either don’t care anymore or are simply just tired of being sick and tired of the constant to and fro of the Canadian agricultural policy wars. I understand that.
Needless to say there are storm clouds in our future and we need to take Canadian agricultural policy a bit more seriously. With swine flu reaching new hype levels seemingly each hour and with the Canadian dollar finding religion it’s pretty clear to me we could be headed for uneven times ahead. The Conservative government’s refusal to become full partners with provincial governments in protecting the viability of family farms is becoming a big problem. Their Agri-Flex program has nothing to do with the Agri-Flex program which our various Canadian farm groups had lobbied for. So as we peer into the future through the fog of swine flu and that rising Canadian dollar there is nothing on the other side with regard to an agricultural safety net which so many of us have fought for.
Over the last few weeks I’ve had to re-initiation into the agricultural policy process. Some of you may remember a picture of me at the Ottawa Farm rally three years ago, microphone in hand, helping to lead the 10,000 farmers in front of me. That picture was taken by a young woman named of Regan Butler who lives on a farm near Croton Ontario. Over the last few weeks she’s been working on a major research paper for her postgraduate work. It just so happens that she asked me for advice with regard to the new “Growing Forward” agricultural policy framework. As many of you know I think, metaphorically, it was written on the back of a napkin. However not wanting to bias her too much I connected her with many of my colleagues within government who worked on the “Growing Forward” policy process.
I will share that with you when I get it from Regan. Many of her questions were understandable. For instance she wanted to know what responsibility the federal government had across Canada in each different province. Of course I gave her the standard answers that the federal government has to think about each province and this makes it difficult to satisfy regional needs. The current problem with the lack of a support program for Québec and Ontario grains and oilseed producers is an obvious example.
However in my mind things are going from bad to worse and a lot of it has to do with Federal minister Gerry Ritz. I was surprised last week to see him lauded by some agricultural journalists for changing agricultural policy to rely more specifically on prospects from the market. This is being embraced by the provinces simply because it’s cheap and dirty. It’s hard to believe in 2009 anybody would be so misguided to believe in the sanctity of the free market but that is what Minister Ritz is purporting. It’s 180° opposite of what 10,000 farmers stood for on April 5, 2006 when we massed on Parliament Hill. The Conservatives took advantage of that. Three years later Conservative minister Ritz wouldn’t even meet with Québec farmers to discuss the affordable and effective solution called Agri-Flex.
Mixing agricultural policy with our present markets is an endgame. However, what isn’t an endgame is facilitating agricultural policy to change market structure. I have seen that with Ontario corn and our supplying managed commodities. Simply put at the end of the day there is no good agricultural policy reason to not do the same thing for western grain and the many other commodities we produce in this country.
We can complain all we want and maybe even gnash our teeth. However the future is pretty obvious to me, say goodbye to the hard-fought for Risk Management Plan (RMP) in Ontario and forget about any effective safety net from the federal government. Under the present circumstances, how could anybody see it any different? It’s like it is 2004 again, minus all the CAIS program optics.
It is true our agricultural marketing world is a lot different than it was in 2004. However, we continue to waste millions of dollars on a Canadian agricultural policy, which is inept. Farmers are not satisfied, consumers are being completely duped and government will never reach their goals other than putting on a brave face. It is a sad commentary and one I hope to leave behind for another day. The reckoning is coming, that’s for sure. Flushing those Agri-Stability fees down the toilet was the latest example.
Minister Ritz is doing the wrong thing. In my mind its chaos theory 101 and I haven’t even mentioned his bizarre manifestations regarding the Canadian Wheat Board. It is hard to imagine how this would be a prescription for electoral success in rural Canada. However, we all know predicting that is a road to nowhere. The challenge for Canadian farmers is to find those marketing opportunities amid the rising tide and hope our farm groups have the government by the tail because when it comes to Canadian agricultural policy, we can certainly do better than this.