Will Joe Oliver prove to be a farmer-friendly finance minister?

Thursday, May 1, 2014

The federal finance minister is the second (and sometimes the first) most important minister for the agricultural sector. Farm lobbyists will be anxious to find out where the latest incumbent stands and what he knows about the issues that affect the industry

by BARRY WILSON

Canadian farmers can only hope that Joe Oliver knows where his food comes from, who grows it and the concerns they have. And Canada's farm leaders have a new item on their to-do list: get to know their new finance minister.

In mid-March, Oliver, a 73-year-old rookie MP from downtown Toronto with a long history in the financial services industry as a leading Bay Street player, was sworn in as one of the government's key ministers. Jim Flaherty, finance minister since the Conservatives won government in 2006, stepped down in March. Short of a new agriculture minister (not on the horizon), this is the most significant ministerial change possible for the farm community.

While most producers look to the federal agriculture minister as their point person in cabinet (although, for western producers this winter, transport minister Lisa Raitt has been almost as visible on railway shipping backlogs as has agriculture minister Gerry Ritz), the federal finance minister actually is the second (and sometimes the first) most important minister for the sector.

An agriculture minister can propose whatever he or she thinks the industry needs. But, if it costs money, the finance minister usually has to buy into the proposal, unless he is overruled by a farmer-friendly prime minister.

Over the past three decades, there have been classic examples on both sides of the issue.

During the first Brian Mulroney government in 1984-88, international grain subsidy wars were in full swing, Prairie farmers were losing money and several times the government coughed up billion-dollar farm payments.

Then-agriculture minister John Wise and Canadian Wheat Board minister Charlie Mayer were making the cabinet pitch for aid packages. Toronto- and Bay Street-based finance minister Michael Wilson was not seen as sympathetic in the face of huge deficits but, in the end, he was overruled by the politically attuned Mulroney, looking at his party's prairie base.

Agriculture ministers also have sometimes been blessed with a finance minister who understood the farm challenges and was sympathetic. Two who come to mind are Don Mazankowski, finance minister and former Progressive Conservative agriculture minister in the early 1990s, and Liberal Ralph Goodale, who served as finance minister from 2003 to 2006 after serving as agriculture minister a decade earlier.

So now there is Joe Oliver, an unknown quantity on the agricultural file and possibly the country's oldest first-time finance minister. His published resumé doesn't show any particular experience in the complexities of food and farm policy, although he has spent the past three years as natural resources minister. While much of his focus has been on promoting energy exports, at least he has some grounding in the importance of the commodity sector.

In the current government climate, in which farm support programs are largely legislated, incomes generally have been robust and ad hoc farm supports are frowned upon, Oliver is not likely to be facing pressure for big new spending plans.

Still, the power of his voice at the cabinet table has just been amplified and agricultural issues always will be on that table. Farm lobbyists will be anxious to find out where he stands and what he knows about the issues that affect the industry. BF

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