Bernier won’t kowtow on dairy
If there is a statute of limitations on boneheaded decisions, Maxime Bernier may just have moved beyond it.
In 2008, Bernier was a rising star in Stephen Harper’s cabinet — nicknamed “Blocbuster” for his sharp attacks on Quebec separatists. Then he crashed to earth. Harper sacked him as foreign affairs minister for leaving secret documents in the home of his then-girlfriend, Julie Couillard, a woman with past links to organized crime.
He was dismissed by critics as a vain playboy — “a joke and a lightweight.”
But the MP from the Beauce, Que., is made of stern stuff, as befits a man who ran 106 kilometres across his riding in 13 hours for charity three years ago.
After a period of reflection in a monastery, he returned to politics, rejoined cabinet as a junior minister and worked hard to rehabilitate his reputation.
While keeping his head down, he occasionally came up for air to champion issues of principle — even when his position was at odds with the party line.
It is a more prudent, humble and experienced Maxime Bernier who is bidding for the vacant Conservative leadership.
One veteran Tory said he went to see him in Calgary last month, without preconceptions or enthusiasm.
“But he spoke very well and exceeded expectations. Imagine a principled, philosophic conservative from Quebec. I think he may be one to watch,” he said.
While Bernier may have been chastened by his experience, he retains an almost puppy-like enthusiasm for politics that people like — he won the Beauce riding by 20,000 votes and has never garnered less than 50 per cent of the vote in any of his four victories.
Bernier was at the centre of one of few Canadian sex scandals worthy of the name. The prospect of him being a serious candidate for leadership might cause an arching of eyebrows outside conservative circles.
But, like the two men who encounter a lion, the dapper Beauce MP doesn’t have to outrun the king of the jungle, he has to outrun the other guy.
The competition at this stage of the leadership race is far less challenging than Justin Trudeau.
At a press conference Tuesday, he took a big step toward winning over many of the people who will decide the leadership race — Conservative party members.
Bernier said he wants the Tories to overturn the party’s official support for the supply management system of dairy, poultry and eggs.
As a leadership candidate, he said he is free to express the view that the system is inefficient and unfair to consumers. “I am respectfully asking the members of our party to reconsider their position on this issue … We should use the occasion of the leadership race to have a real debate on this issue, instead of maintaining this taboo,” he said.
The arguments against supply management are so well-worn, it seems incredible the Harper Conservatives clung to the policy through five elections, ostensibly to protect MPs such as Bernier who have large dairy farming communities.
As Bernier pointed out, by fixing prices above world prices, Canadian consumers pay $2.6 billion more than they might otherwise have to for milk, cheese, eggs and chicken.
As the Conference Board said in 2014, that amounts to a subsidy of roughly $200,000 per dairy farm every year and extra costs of around $276 for every family — a transfer of resources from poorer Canadians to wealthier Canadians.
All our politicians know this story; few have openly confronted the powerful dairy lobby, which will arrive by tractor on Parliament Hill en masse Thursday, seeking compensation for the TransPacific and European trade deals.
But this is a Conservative party that is in the mood to slaughter all sorts of sacred cows, from opposition to gay marriage to support for supply management.
Bernier has another advantage over many of his rivals — he is one of only two candidates thought to be interested in the leadership who can speak both of Canada’s official languages fluently (the other being Jason Kenney).
“It’s important to be able to answer (journalists’) questions and it is important to be able to speak to Quebecers in their own language,” Bernier said.
Given the Conservative party’s voting rules, where a small riding in rural Quebec will carry the same voting weight as urban Alberta constituencies, the ability to win in French Canada is likely to be material.
Can he win? The polls would suggest no.
But it is early yet and his campaign is off to a good start.
By claiming the abolition of supply management as a signature policy, Bernier is showing he is prepared to tackle difficult issues. For that alone, he should be commended.