up front By Bryden Winsby


Bombast, budgets and sunny ways I


n case you missed it, we recently emerged from one election cycle and are heading into another. (No, not the one south of the line, where political campaigning has plumbed new depths of nonsensical bombast, which is at once hilarious and more than a little frightening.) Here, we are still waiting to


see more of the “sunny ways” approach to federal governance referred to by our newly-minted Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, and what the provincial government intends to do, or not do, prior to the 41st British Columbia general election, tentatively scheduled for May 9, 2017.


Unfortunately, what's in store for agriculture, in terms of policy and budget, isn't usually the stuff of which political hay is made. Unless they are suffering from storms, pestilence, prolonged drought and angry protests, agriculture and related industries are pretty low on the day-to-day news media priority pole, and they get little or no mention during election campaigns and budget speeches.


At this writing, the Trudeau government has yet to bring down its first budget, which is expected sometime in the latter half of March. We're being prepped for some serious deficit spending, especially on infrastructure, with the aim of returning the budget to balance by 2019. One hopes there will be enough in the kitty to continue and build on agrifood initiatives of the previous government, most notably Growing Forward, whose objective is to improve marketing capacity at home and abroad. The ouster of Stephen Harper's government last fall put Conservative ag minister Gerry Ritz on the outside looking in, even though he won his Saskatchewan riding for the seventh time since it was created in 1997. His successor is also a veteran MP, former farmer and businessman Lawrence MacAulay, who represents Cardigan in eastern Prince Edward Island, and won his ninth consecutive election in October. MacAulay’s cabinet resume is lengthy. Appointments have included Solicitor General, Minister of Labour, Secretary of State (Veterans), and Secretary of State (Atlantic Canada


4 British Columbia Berry Grower • Spring 2016


Opportunities Agency). He has served as critic for Fisheries and Oceans and Seniors. In addition, he was vice-chair of the Commons Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans.


No shortage of experience and know-how. We'll have to wait a bit to so see how much get-done he's got.


According to federal figures, Canada is the world's fifth-largest exporter of agricultural and agri-food products. The 2014 total was more than $51.5 billion, but take wheat, canola and cattle out of the equation and our ranking would tumble considerably. On the import side, incidentally, our top agri-food import that year was grape wine (nearly $1.9 billion).


Provincially, finance minister Mike de Jong (who knows more than a little bit about farming) should be introducing his latest budget at about the time you read this, and while B.C. has lagged seriously behind many other provinces in terms of ag spending for years now,


there have been signs of improvement. How much better it will get, I'm not about to speculate, and would probably get it all wrong, anyway.


Oh, so where did that “sunny ways' phrase come from, you ask? Well, when Trudeau spoke in French at the beginning of his victory speech, he made reference to Sir Wilfrid Laurier, who first used it.


"Sunny ways my friends. Sunny ways," Trudeau told enthusiastic supporters in Montreal. "This is what positive politics can do."


According to Dalhousie University history professor Shirley Tillotson, when Laurier became PM in 1896, there was a highly acrimonious dispute in Manitoba over French-language Catholic schools. The Protestant majority was attempting to eliminate the separate schools. It was a battle over minority language rights and education. Laurier created an approach he called "sunny ways" in an attempt to dial back some of the bad blood.


So now you know...


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