Senator and former agriculture minister Eugene Whelan has
died of complications following a stroke last summer. He was 88.
Whelan was the most popular agriculture minister Canada has
had in several generations, famous for his green Stetson, outspoken opinions
and folksy speeches.
He languished in the back benches of Parliament for 10 years
after his first victory as a Liberal in Essex-Windsor in 1962. During the 1972
election campaign under Pierre Trudeau, he published his own agriculture policy
platform that differed from the official Liberal Party platform and
then-agriculture-minister H.A. (Bud) Olson, a relatively right-wing cattle
rancher from Alberta.
Whelan was definitely left wing espousing policies that
aligned closely with the New Democratic Party and the National Farmers Union.
Trudeau appointed him agriculture minister and gave him free
rein, including patience to allow him to attack Beryl Plumtree after Trudeau
appointed her head of his Food Prices Review Board.
That cemented Whelan’s popularity among farmers as he
threatened to “chop down the Plumtree” and insisted that “food in Canada is a
bargain” and that the public could “either pay me (high prices for food) now,
or pay me later (if low prices drove farmers into bankruptcy).”
That bloom faded at the end of the 1970s when interest rates
spiked and many farmers, especially the young and most aggressive
entrepreneurs, were bankrupted in
1980-82. Whelan had increased loan limits for young farmers, but then the federal government had to bail out the Farm Credit
Corporation (now Farm Credit Canada) with about $2.5 billion to write off
government loans to the crown corporation.
Whelan lost his cabinet post when Joe Clark’s conservatives
took power in 1979, but he was back in 1980 and remained until he backed Jean
Chretien for leader of the party in 1984, but John Turner was chosen. Turner
tossed Whelan for Ralph Ferguson, an Ontario farmer.
Turner appointed Whelan ambassador to the World Food
Programme in Rome, but Brian Mulroney, famous in a televised election debate
for lecturing Turner that he had a choice to reject patronage appointments,
swept into power and eliminated Whelan’s appointment. At the time, Whelan
spurned offers of an appointment to the Senate; he felt it should be abolished.
He changed his mind when Chretien appointed him to the
Senate in 1996.
Whelan is often wrongly credited for introducing national
supply management. It came first to the dairy industry in the mid-1960s and it
was Olson who introduced the legislation for national supply management for all
other commodities in 1970 and got it passed before the 1972 election.
Olson was
no fan of supply management, but was convinced it was necessary to end a
vicious inter-provincial “chicken and egg war”.
It fell to Whelan to defend supply management when the
Canadian Egg Marketing Agency botched supply management, piling up surplus eggs
that rotted in improper storage in 1974.
He was agriculture minister when the turkey
and broiler chicken industries got around to setting up national marketing
agencies.
He was passionate about helping feed the world and his daughter, Susan, carried on that passion after she won election in the same riding of Essex-Windsor and was named to the cabinet post responsible for the Canadian International Development Agency.
Whelan served on the World Food Council.
He also hosted Mikhael Gorbachev when he was Russia's agriculture minister and before he became Russia's Prime Minister.
Among places Gorbachev visited was the Seagram-owned beef feedlot near Kitchener where the company fed cattle distiller's mash, a practice that has become widespread with the distillation of ethanol., although that mash is dried for easier transportation and handling.
He was passionate about helping feed the world and his daughter, Susan, carried on that passion after she won election in the same riding of Essex-Windsor and was named to the cabinet post responsible for the Canadian International Development Agency.
Whelan served on the World Food Council.
He also hosted Mikhael Gorbachev when he was Russia's agriculture minister and before he became Russia's Prime Minister.
Among places Gorbachev visited was the Seagram-owned beef feedlot near Kitchener where the company fed cattle distiller's mash, a practice that has become widespread with the distillation of ethanol., although that mash is dried for easier transportation and handling.
