It was the kind of confession that politicians are not noted for making in public. Allan Kerpan, Moose Jaw MP and chair of the Reform caucus agricultural committee, confessed in the House of Commons in late April that farmers in his Saskatchewan riding are none too happy with the lack of attention being paid them by the politicians.
“I have to be honest and tell them we are not talking about agriculture in Ottawa,” Kerpan said during a debate on agriculture.
“Sometimes it is very difficult for me, being a farmer, to admit that we are not talking or spending very much time on agriculture.”
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Four months into the new Parliament, it was a problem for the party that won the lion’s share of Western Canadian rural ridings in the last election.
Several Reform MPs reported privately that their agricultural image on the Prairies is fuzzy at best, non-existent at worst.
Partly, it reflects the fact that most reporters covering Parliament Hill pay little attention to agricultural debates.
Reform could talk about farm issues until the cows come home and receive little or no coverage in the daily or electronic media.
But the problem goes deeper than that.
Partly, it is because Reform is a party of free-wheelers, as much interested in their freedom of expression as they are in toeing a party line. There has not been a consistent message.
Partly it is because the Reform message has been blurred by the fact that MPs from Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba carry different interpretations of agricultural needs into debate.
Last week, the Reform caucus tried to change that.
During a debate on agriculture called by the government, Reform orchestrated a concerted effort to present party policy on a number of different policy areas.
It was organized by Vegreville MP Leon Benoit, the most ideologically driven of the rural Reformers, a politician totally committed to a vision of free-market agriculture all but free of government involvement.
The effort involved most of the 52-member Reform caucus, including an economic analysis and day-long participation from leader Preston Manning.
“Our interest is to get the message out, to let people know that we have positive alternatives,” Benoit said last week. “In some areas, it is true that people have said we have not been focusing clearly enough on agriculture.”
For at least one day last week, that focus sharpened. With some regional and personality variations, it offered a free market, may-the-best-farmer-win approach to agriculture.
Benoit concedes that getting the message out is but the first job of the party.
More important in the long run will be public acceptance of a platform that flies in the face of 60 years of Canadian policy.
“Some will like it and some will not but we want everyone to know where we stand,” said Benoit. “The day everyone agrees on a farm program is a scary day.”
He shouldn’t expect too many scary days in the next while.
