IT WAS the middle of the night in Paris when Canadian farm leader Bob Friesen heard the Canadian election news.
It was a familiar story about the same old gang.
A stronger Liberal majority. The fizzle of the rural Ontario anti-Liberal uprising over a lack of funding promises.
The Canadian Alliance still in control of Western Canada.
The Progressive Conservatives, with a strong agricultural policy, reduced to a parliamentary sliver.
“It looks pretty well the same,” said the Manitoba farmer and Canadian Federation of Agriculture president. “I’m surprised.”
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federal government proposed several months ago to increase the compensation rate from 80 to 90 per cent and double the maximum payment from $3 million to $6 million
He quickly recovered.
“We’re serving notice that we will continue to press our farmers’ agenda,” he said. “I still have confidence that the government will listen to us.”
He said the CFA will pick up the lobby immediately to win more farm aid.
During the campaign, Ontario and CFA lobbyists had demanded a promise of at least $1.5 billion in national farm aid but it did not come.
“We heard the Liberals promise there would be more money,” he said. “We will be there to remind them of that.”
In Alberta, Western Canadian Wheat Growers’ Association president Ted Menzies was less optimistic. Privately, he is a Progressive Conservative supporter and worker. Officially, in his farm leadership role, he is neutral but strongly in favor of less government and an end to the Canadian Wheat Board monopoly.
While driving to Calgary from Claresholm on election night to visit the headquarters of Tory leader Joe Clark, Menzies talked about his disappointment with the Liberal majority.
He was particularly unhappy that Canadian Wheat Board minister Ralph Goodale was re-elected in Regina.
“I thought the farm vote there would be enough to get rid of him,” he said. “It wasn’t. I expect we will face the same types of policies we have faced for years from them. This will not help.”
The two farm leaders reflected the reality of the results. Not much has changed.
The Liberals maintain their lock on rural Ontario and have increased support in rural Quebec. It means Canada is governed by a Liberal government that is more dependent on areas of the country where defending supply management is the main agricultural issue.
But it also means there is a Liberal government still dependent on 30 or more rural Ontario seats where farmers will continue their demand for increased government support to get Canadian grains and oilseeds farmers close to the support levels received by American farmers.
However, those disgruntled farmers have shown they cannot or will not defeat Liberal candidates.
Western Canada can expect to exert even less influence on the government. There are no western rural Liberals. There are fewer western Liberals in caucus and it leaves Goodale as the most powerful prairie Liberal. He is a strong defender of the wheat board and an opponent of the movement to reduce the board to an option for farmers marketing their export wheat and barley.
Prairie farm groups fighting for an end to the wheat board monopoly have their work cut out for them in the next four years.
