Canada's new ag minister brings an East Coast perspective
Thursday, November 5, 2015
by BARRY WILSON
Veteran Prince Edward Island MP and former cabinet minister Lawrence MacAulay was appointed Canada’s 33rd federal agriculture minister in the new Justin Trudeau Liberal government Nov. 4.
He takes office with few specific campaign promises to fulfill but with some major policy questions to be decided in the next two years.
MacAulay is a 69-year-old former P.E.I farmer first sworn into a cabinet post in 1993 as solicitor general and who held other cabinet posts under former Prime Minister Jean Chrétien.
Through his 27 years in Parliament, he has not been a major voice in agricultural debates.
And the Liberal Party election platform did not burden him with many specific promises to the farm community.
The party promised $160 million over four years to an Agri-Food Value Added Investment Fund, $100 million over four years to agricultural research and $80 million over four years to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.
It also promised a rail pricing review and a re-assessment of the safety net cuts included in the Growing Forward 2 federal-provincial agreement that took effect in 2013 and is up for renewal by 2017.
Agriculture was not a major part of the Liberal successful campaign for government.
However, MacAulay will be facing pressure to influence some key decisions as the new Liberal regime settles in.
New trade minister Chrystia Freeland, a former economic journalist from downtown Toronto, will be the lead minister on whether to ratify the sweeping Trans-Pacific Partnership Asia-Pacific trade deal that opens markets for Canadian meat, grain and pulse crop producers but undermines some supply management domestic market protections.
The outgoing Conservative government promised more than $4 billion in compensation to supply-managed farmers over the next 15 years. The Liberals have not indicated if they would ratify the deal and if so, whether the Conservative compensation promise will be honored.
It will be up to MacAulay to defend or renounce that commitment.
Ratification of the Canada-European Union trade deal also falls to the new government. Despite its small opening for European cheese imports, most export-oriented farm sectors support the deal, and the new minister will be called upon to represent the sector at the cabinet table.
Next year also will see the beginning of more intensive federal-provincial negotiations over the shape and detail of the next Growing Forward five-year agreement.
The last deal led to significant cuts in farm safety net programs and in opposition the Liberals criticized them while promising to restore some of the income protections.
MacAulay will be the lead federal negotiator when talks become more serious at next summer’s federal-provincial agriculture ministers’ meeting.
Another major issue for the new agriculture minister will be what promises to be an activist Liberal government agenda on climate change and the environment. Rookie Ottawa MP Catherine McKenna, environment and climate change minister, has an agenda and little obvious connection to agriculture.
With Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne a significant supporter of Trudeau during his Ontario campaigning, pressure will be on Agriculture Canada to pitch in on stronger environmental policies, possibly including following Ontario’s model of restricting neonicotinoid pesticides in seed treatment.
Health minister and rookie urban MP Jane Philpott will be the lead minister on the file since her responsibility includes the Pest Management Regulatory Agency, and MacAulay will face pressure to represent agricultural issues during the discussion.
He replaces Saskatchewan-based minster Gerry Ritz who held the job for more than eight years.
MacAulay is the first agriculture minister to come from P.E.I.; he’s also the only one from that province in the federal cabinet. BF
Read more about Canada's new agriculture minister in Barry Wilson's column, The Hill, in Better Farming's December 2015 edition.