The Hill

‘Product of Canada’ – another wrong-headed government policy

By arbitrarily ruling that food products must have 98 per cent Canadian content to merit the national label, the government virtually assured that none can

by BARRY WILSON

The list of stupid or wrong-headed government food policies is long and legendary but few top the decision several years ago by Ottawa to require 98 per cent Canadian content before a food product can be labelled “product of Canada.”

It means almost no products are on Canadian grocery shelves advertised as “product of Canada.” It means Canadian food processors and exporters often slap a “product of Canada” label on a product heading into the United States because it gives it a valuable brand, even if that product cannot be sold that way in Canada.

The Canadian Foodgrains Bank – a testimony to Canada’s better instincts

Farmers working to get food to people without is the face of Canada’s generosity and humanitarian instincts. But even it has to admit to a mea culpa

by BARRY WILSON

Canada’s recent history of federal political instability and frequent election campaigns has been a mixed blessing for an itinerant reporter assigned to plot and analyze rural campaigns and issues across the country.

On the negative side, every second year seemed to require a month or more of gruelling schedules and weeks on end on the road away from home.

Supply management – flexible federalism at its best?

So suggested the Supreme Court of Canada recently, despite what the pundits and think tanks say

by BARRY WILSON

As 2011 ended, Canada’s supply management system was under the most sustained attack from the media, academics and agri-food critics that it had ever faced.

Rarely a week went by without a new criticism from a business shill, a think tank, an international source, media columnist or television commentator.

The only good news was that World Trade Organization talks in Geneva remained deadlocked after a December ministerial meeting and even the optimists predicted at least a two-year hiatus. More likely, the round is dead.

The tobacco transition program – hastily conceived, poorly executed, open to abuse

That was the verdict of the auditor-general on the 2008 Ontario Transition Program, set up to end the tobacco quota but clearly with political ends in mind

by BARRY WILSON

It is a political axiom as old as politics itself – public policy created on the fly to meet a political need usually is flawed policy.

The 2008 Ontario Transition Program is the latest exhibit. It was hastily conceived, poorly executed, badly explained and rife with the potential for farmer abuse. That’s the conclusion of interim federal auditor-general John Wiersema in a report tabled in Parliament in late November.

What’s good for Ontario isn’t good for the Prairies

The federal Conservatives claim that the abolition of the Canadian Wheat Board is all about democracy and freedom is belied by the fact that Ontario farmers were allowed a vote on the subject and Prairie farmers are not

by BARRY WILSON

A fascinating part of Ontario’s storied history is its role as the terminus for the Underground Railroad, a 19th Century network that smuggled runaway black slaves from the United States to freedom.

Where will the budget cuts come for Ag Canada?

With federal departments being asked for savings of five to 10 per cent, opposition MPs worry that agriculture minister Gerry Ritz doesn’t have the clout to protect his key programs

by BARRY WILSON

For political junkies, this is an autumn to die for.

Seven provinces and territories have held or will hold elections this fall, including Ontario. Alberta Progressive Conservatives elected a new leader and premier (in a one-party state like Alberta, this passes as a provincial election, although just 76,000 voted) and elections are possible in other provinces where fixed election dates are not the law.

Ontario objects to ‘flawed’ farm support proposals

It used to be the Prairie provinces at loggerheads with Ottawa over farm policy. But this time it’s Ontario, which argues that federal plans are heading in the wrong direction


by BARRY WILSON

For a veteran of more than three decades of reporting on federal-provincial agricultural negotiations, it is startling to see Ontario as the dissident at the table.

It’s true that, during the years of Progressive Conservative rule under Mike Harris and Ernie Eves, Ontario ministers like Helen Johns often clashed with federal Liberal ministers, particularly Ontario-based Lyle Vanclief.

Ontario dominates the House agriculture committee

But, with Prairie-centred issues like the abolition of the Canadian Wheat Board monopoly holding centre stage, committee members will have a steep learning curve
 

by BARRY WILSON

As the 41st Parliament opened in early June, only to adjourn after three weeks for a 12-week summer break, the agriculture debate was shaping up to be a largely Ontario affair.

If Saskatchewan-based agriculture minister Gerry Ritz is taken out of the equation (an admittedly large part of the equation), the key agriculture players in the new Parliament are Ontario MPs.

The Tories cement their hold on rural Canada

And this was true also in Ontario, even though the election of a majority Conservative government spells the end of any hopes for federal funding of the province’s Risk Management Program
 

by BARRY WILSON
 

Any chance that Ontario farmers will receive federal funding for their Risk Management Program, at least for four years, died in the late hours of May 2 as the Conservatives rolled to an impressive majority government.

Rural Ontario helped write the script for the Risk Management Program rejection by continuing its massive support for Conservatives, despite the fact that they were the only candidates to flatly reject federal funding for provincial business risk management programs.

Is Liberal support for the Risk Management Program a game changer in rural ridings?

It may not be, but it has injected a note of urgency into electoral debates in rural Ontario

by BARRY WILSON

The political dialogue needs nifty catch phrases that sum up the message. In the 2011 election campaign that is coming to an end May 2, the phrase is “game changer.”

Everything, it seems, is a game changer. Charges of anti-democratic practices against the Conservatives are a game changer. Opposition unity against the Conservatives, triggering an election, is a game changer. Potential Conservative gains in ethnic communities are a game changer. Everything that might have an impact is a “game changer.”