By Paul Vieira

Stephen Harper, the Prime Minister, says he's sticking to his guns when it
comes to boosting ethanol production. This resolve to vouch for an
initiative that has garnered plenty of criticism -- in particular its role
in driving up the price of food -- doesn't come as a surprise to those who
see biofuel policies for what they are: Good politics, especially in terms
of winning over the all-important rural vote.
"I don't see any reason for the federal government to backtrack on ethanol,"
says David McGrane, a political scientist at the University of Saskatchewan
in Saskatoon. He says Ottawa's push to increase ethanol production is
popular with farmers in Western Canada -- a key base for the Conservative
government that it must maintain if it wants to win a majority in the next
election.

Corn and wheat are the primary sources in Canada to produce ethanol. But
even farmers who don't grow either of those crops generally want the ethanol
policy to stay.

"The more land that is used to grow corn or wheat for ethanol, the more
valuable your land is because demand for land is being driven up. And then
you can capitalize on your increased land values," says Finn Poschmann,
director of research for the C. D. Howe Institute, the think-tank that
published a critical analysis last week on Canadian government ethanol
policies.

"That is a politically winning combination, and there is no doubt it is one
of the reasons why ethanol has been so successful as a policy."

Even though most of Canada is urbanized, Mr. McGrane says rural votes tend
to hold more sway because of what political scientists describe as
"malapportionment." The way Canadian electoral districts are divided, an MP
running in an urban riding would tend to require two to three times as many
votes as an MP running in a rural riding to win the seat -- thereby
attributing more power to a single rural vote over a single urban vote.

Mr. Harper told Canadian reporters following him during a trip to Japan that
ethanol production accounts for only a "small proportion" of the worldwide
increase in food prices.

"To the best of our knowledge, there are several causes to the recent rise
in food prices and I don't want to minimize any of them -- and biofuels is
probably a factor," the Prime Minister said. "But we're convinced the far
greater factor is actually the rise in energy input costs for the production
of food. This is just another indication of why we must develop alternative
fuel sources."

(Dalton McGuinty, the Ontario Premier, was quoted in media reports as
suggesting his government was rethinking its ethanol policies. But a
spokeswoman said yesterday this was not the case and that Mr. McGuinty
remains committed to the ethanol policies his government has in place.)

The C. D. Howe analysis, written by University of Guelph economist Douglas
Auld, concludes Canadian households could expect to pay an additional
$400-million a year for their food based on "misguided" federal and
provincial policies aimed at boosting ethanol production, including
incentives aimed at building ethanol plants. In percentage terms, the
estimated annual increase works out to 1.1%, or double what U. S. consumers
face from their country's ethanol policies.

Mr. Harper made increased ethanol content in gasoline one of the
Conservative Party's main tenets in its agriculture platform in the last
election campaign. Previous Liberal governments had also pledged to increase
the amount of ethanol blend in gasoline, as part of their myriad plans to
combat climate change.

In the 2007 budget, the Conservative government pledged up to $2-billion in
support of renewable fuels, including up to $1.5-billion in operating
incentives and $500-million for research in next-generation renewable fuels.
Last month, the Conservative government, with the help of the Liberal Party,
pushed through a bill that forces retail gas pumps across the country to
contain at least 5% ethanol by 2010. Opposing the bill were the Bloc
Quebecois and the NDP -- a move that will cost the left-wing party votes in
Western Canada in the next federal election, predicts Mr. Mc-Grane, the
political scientist.

In proceeding with its biofuel policy, the federal government has argued it
would reduce greenhouse-gas emissions by 4.2 million tonnes annually, or the
equivalent of removing one million cars from the roads.

But critics, such as the C. D. Howe Institute, argue there is no "conclusive
evidence" that ethanol reduces carbon output or energy use, once the entire
production cycle is taken into account. Further, it says, the cost per tonne
of greenhouse gas reduced is roughly seven times more than alternative
policy measures.
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