McFadyen forced to show his cards

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 13/09/2011 (5171 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

You can say what you want about elections, but they do help some politicians focus.

At Monday’s radio debate, hosted by the Manitoba Chambers of Commerce in Brandon, we got to hear a definitive statement from Progressive Conservative Leader Hugh McFadyen about the Canadian Wheat Board.

Just that morning, CWB proponents released a plebiscite that showed nearly two-thirds of wheat farmers and a slim majority of barley farmers want to keep the single marketing desk in place. The results more or less support the view that a majority of farmers want to keep the CWB as is.

The plebiscite, and the future of the wheat board, are federal issues for the most part. But with an incumbent premier launching a media campaign to challenge Ottawa’s decision to do away with the single desk, it’s easy to see how this would become a provincial issue.

And yet it hadn’t really been much of a provincial issue. McFadyen has been less than entirely clear on his wheat board position. He consistently criticized Premier Greg Selinger for his campaign to save the board. However, he fell short of supporting the end of the single desk. Until Monday.

“The federal government has made a decision,” McFadyen said on CJOB. “They were clear on their position going into the election and they got a strong mandate to move forward.

“So we’re then confronted with two options. We can do what Mr. Selinger is doing, running attack ads against the federal Conservatives, we can fight with the federal government and try to undo a decision that’s already been made. Or we can… accept the decision that’s been made and look at how we can take advantage of new opportunities that arise.”

At first blush, this appears to be a high-risk move for McFadyen. Although it’s unlikely he would lose a lot of support in the Tory core in rural ridings — even though there are a lot of farmers who want to keep the CWB — it’s not a popular stance in Winnipeg, where many CWB head-office workers live and where McFadyen must win seats if he’s to be premier.

Why come out now on Ottawa’s side? McFadyen’s future in politics — at the moment — depends on the support and expertise of federal Tories. Sen. Don Plett and federal Tory strategist Marnie Larkin are co-chairs of McFadyen’s campaign. Federal ground troops are working to help McFadyen. And the Manitoba Tories have borrowed heavily from the federal Tory playbook for their campaign advertising and ground-level strategies.

Moreover, federal Tories have encouraged McFadyen to tell Manitobans their province would get a better deal on many issues if McFadyen were in power. McFadyen said bluntly after the save-the-CWB campaign, Selinger “doesn’t like the federal Conservative government and they don’t like him either.”

McFadyen is on a slippery slope. Perhaps he remembers his former boss, then-premier Gary Filmon, found in the 1990s that his relationship with the federal government of Tory Brian Mulroney was a mixed blessing. While the two leaders did have similar world views, Filmon did not fall in with Mulroney’s national unity strategy and was at odds with Ottawa over disaster assistance and agriculture policy.

How bad did things get? In the 1990s, the opposition New Democrats regularly distributed photocopies of an infamous photo of a smiling Filmon arm-in-arm with Mulroney at a black-tie dinner. It was an image the Filmon Tories did not want to perpetuate.

Does McFadyen’s decision to back Ottawa on the CWB mean he is beholden to Ottawa? No, and if first ministers have proven anything, it is that given a choice between an unpopular federal policy and a conflicting but more popular provincial policy, the latter usually wins out.

There is important business to be worked out between Ottawa and Manitoba on the CWB file. Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz has reportedly promised to provide some support to Winnipeg to soften the blow from the loss of head-office jobs. Does an NDP victory jeopardize those talks? Not even the most senior Tory sources would suggest Ritz’s support depends upon a McFadyen victory. Even so, it’s not hard to imagine Ritz feeling more generous sitting across from McFadyen, even if that only lasts for the honeymoon period following the Manitoba election. In the choice between angering wheat board employees and luring everyone else with a promise of greater riches from Ottawa, McFadyen has chosen his strategy.

There are many aspects of politics that are less than altruistic. Offering a premier of the same political stripe a better deal than a contrarian from another party may seem petty, even punitive. But it’s also realpolitik — and a reality in this campaign.

dan.lett@freepress.mb.ca