Gerry Ritz, the Member of Parliament for Battlefords-Lloydminster /International Trade Critic for the Conservative Party of Canada isn’t quite yet prepared to hang ‘em up as the saying often goes when people think it might be time to retire.

In a recent interview, to determine where he wants to take his new position too, we talked about various issues.

Ritz had the agriculture portfolio for many years and did a good job with it. Now in opposition, a much harder task, it will be interesting how he will handle it.

How do you keep motivated now in opposition and keep firing on all eight cylinders?

“As I tell everybody we’re pushing the rope not pulling it,” he said. “It is a little more difficult and certainly it is frustrating at times, but I’ve maintained a lot of my international contacts. I talked to Chinese buyers on this canola dockage situation and talked to buyers all over the world, and in Europe as we hope to move forward on Comprehensive European Trade Agreement.”

Ritz says there is still a good focus for many of the Conservative MP’s on agriculture that is the major part that all play when it comes to western Canada.

“In my case it also includes oil and gas and when that is down agriculture has to step forward and has the capacity to do that,” he said. “There is a lot of discussion whether the Liberals will actually get CETA done and TPP … we just aren’t sure because they are sending such mixed signals.” The new international trade critic says the hearings are starting now on the transportation corridors and what’s going to be needed with the rail structure.

“Of course I’m a firm believer until you have really good legal definitions that are adequate and suitable and the reciprocity and the penalties and the tariffs that can be charged you really can’t have a good commercial agreement,” said the Conservative Trade Critic. “We need things like that addressed sooner rather than later. When it comes to trade of course we’ve always been very strong on the trade routes from an agricultural perspective we sell between 50 and 90 per cent of what we grow so we need markets and a diversity of markets so we make sure we have the ability to keep agriculture and farmers strong.”

In regards to the closing of the Port of Churchill, Ritz says the problems that we’re finding with the Port of Churchill and OmniTrax Rail other groups like the new CentrePort in Winnipeg will come forward and start to take over that space. The NDP today want to have it nationalized again and the Liberals privatized it way back when in 1997.

“But having said that from all the information that I’ve had there is not a lot left to take over,” he said. “There wasn’t a lot of maintenance let alone upkeep done on the rail line especially, and it would take hundreds of millions of dollars to bring everything back to the ability to make it worthwhile. I’m not sure any government should have deep pockets like that.”

When Ritz was on the government side, he says OmniTrax had at its disposal some $40 million dollars that we put out as government, but they never really took us up on that. The province of Manitoba was going to put that amount in too and we expected OmniTrax to do the same. They could have had a 100 to 120 million dollar pot of money to upgrade the rail to expand the port to make sure they could load bigger vessels rather than turning them around as they were doing now.

“There is a tremendous amount of work and money needed to make Churchill viable again … Not sure what the Liberals will do with it,” he added. The biggest concern Ritz has is that the government of the day, the Liberals seem intent on putting Canada at a disadvantage while pumping up other countries around the world. “I’m not just talking agriculture but the whole value chain in a carbon tax and things like that our major trading partner’s colleagues like Australia, U.S. and when going into these new Pacific Rim country markets and other markets, they will not be taxed to that level,” he said. “It puts our guys at a disadvantage.”

The Alberta carbon tax will cost Hutterite colonies in Alberta in extra operating 200 to 400 thousand dollars a year. That is net cost and there is no way to pass that on because farmers are price takers and they will pay on fuel, fertilizer, and pay a carbon tax on everything else coming into that including equipment being delivered.

“It is a tremendous hit and an anchor that farmers and our industry will be dragging trying to compete against others that have the flexibility not to have a carbon tax,” he added. •

— By Harry Siemens