The Hill: When praise becomes part of the Tory propaganda machine

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Farm leaders are becoming ruefully aware that offering public praise for a government program can also create a credibility problem

by BARRY WILSON

It is a sensible axiom of political lobbying that the job involves more than demanding government action and then complaining if you got just half a loaf. It is also about praising governments when they actually get it right, or even partially right. It helps create a sense with government folks that, if they spend some political capital on your behalf, the effort will be acknowledged.

Farm groups and leaders who are consistently negative or critical are quickly shut out of having any influence.

Farm groups and leaders who are relentlessly positive quickly lose credibility as lapdogs.
So farm group credibility, both with farmers and the political class being influenced, depends on appearing objective, analytical and willing to criticize when it is warranted and ready to give credit when credit is due.

These days, though, farm leaders are finding that offering public praise for the government also can create a credibility problem. Any public praise for a Conservative initiative risks becoming part of the Conservative propaganda machine.
Just ask hog producer Curtiss Littlejohn, from Paris, Ont., a private critic of government hog industry policies who has become a mainstay of agriculture minister Gerry Ritz's cast of cheerleaders.

When confronted with opposition criticism in the House of Commons about livestock sector support programs that many producers say are not working for them, Ritz always has at hand a sheet of paper chock-full of flattering farm leader quotes about those very same programs. Littlejohn has regularly been cited as a fan of government hog programs as Ritz pulls out quotes from Ontario Pork press releases and interviews.

But Littlejohn ruefully told MPs at a Parliament Hill hearing last month that his comments were taken out of context, coming at the announcement of the Hog Industry Loan Loss Reserve program, when it looked like it could get significant loan dollars out to producers. His views have become much more critical when it became clear that lenders did not take kindly to the program and that few cash-starved hog farmers actually were able to receive government-backed loans.

"I have been quoted by the minister seven times in the House as supporting that program," he told MPs on the House of Commons agriculture committee in mid-March. "I did support the program on the basis that 75 per cent of the hog farmers in this country could access it. To date, we have three per cent. As a producer who participated in this, I'll say to my MP and I'll say to you as members of Parliament, we should be ashamed of ourselves that we would allow a program to be that ineffective."

Needless to say, Ritz has not corrected the record. But he soon was at it again, using a critical question from Liberal Wayne Easter in the Commons about a lack of government support for the livestock industry to haul out quotes from livestock leaders in praise of the budget and Dairy Farmers of Canada president Jacques Laforge as praising the government for "stepping up to the plate" with money for specified risk material removal in packing plants.

Easter's ability to get Liberal caucus support for some of his criticisms of government policy gets sabotaged when his fellow MPs note that all farm leaders seem content.

What's the problem?

So the message to farm leaders is: praise when praise is due, but don't praise until you are sure how the program will work, and expect your words to become part of the Tory promotion machine. It is the new reality. BF

Barry Wilson is a member of the Parliamentary Press Gallery specializing in agriculture.