Prime Minister Stephen Harper finally has my undivided attention. This is no mean feat as I have been struggling mightily with the whipsawing stock market, the BUY AMERICA movement, and preparations for Halloween. I am referring, of course, to the method being used to abolish the Canadian Wheat Board.
In the way he is proceeding, Mr. Harper is about to go down in Canadian history as the man who drove the Canadian prairie family wheat farmer into extinction. And he will do it with the most remarkable abuse of the power arising from his political party’s Parliamentary majority.
Some will claim it is simply a matter of natural selection – a Darwinian inevitability – a triumph for the divinely inspired forces of a continentally operated free market. It will be celebrated in other quarters as a removal of an invidious communistic federally appointed national monopoly. A triumph of private enterprise over agricultural collectivism. It almost makes me want to sing a rousing rendition of When Irish Eyes Are Smiling as immortalized by Mulroney & Reagan.
Well, perhaps that is the way of the future. But the manner in which the execution of the wheat board is being carried out smacks of an action driven solely by political ideology. And the legislative process being employed is morally corrupt, albeit politically clever and deft.
The battle for the dismantling of the Canadian Wheat Board dates back to the founding of the Reform Party of Canada shortly after it was hijacked by Preston Manning in British Columbia and dragged over the continental divide to Alberta. The leader of that remarkable political movement embedded the destruction of the wheat board as a prime plank in his party’s platform. While the reason for highlighting this item was principally based on the political footprint of the Reform Movement, at least part of the motivation was embodied in the political philosophy of the primacy of a national market economy operated and managed by the private sector. And that surely isn’t a bad motivation. Indeed, our trade relations with the USA are based on that commercial concept.
Curiously, Mr. Harper, a direct political descendant of Mr. Manning, is the same prime minister who cancelled the oil and gas income trust funds, which caused great financial hardship for many innocent families and seniors, only to have Calgary-based petrochemical giants snap up the bankrupted small energy companies. And now, we see the same move about to enrich Calgary-based giant wheat marketing monopolies at the expense of the independent prairie farmer.
Further, the method of doing so is invidious. I do not recall any instance on the campaign trail where the Conservative government told any of us – including western farmers – that the federal election was the definitive referendum on the future of the Canadian Wheat Board. It would be naive to say that we weren’t aware of Mr. Harper’s opposition to the organization. But there is a legislative requirement for the Canadian government to hold a plebiscite for wheat farmers before determining the future existence of the board. To now claim that electing Stephen Harper was, in effect, the plebiscite itself, is specious.
One ponders on what is next to go on the chopping block. Perhaps our national parks.
Alan Murdock is a local pediatrician.
