THIS is a cautionary tale for those Canadian Alliance candidates who honestly believe that if elected to government, they could help farmers prosper and win their support in the process.
What’s a politician to do?
Like the poor in St. Matthew’s Gospel, farm problems are always with us. That was prime minister Jean ChrŽtien’s essential message when he visited Regina last week and at least this time, he got it right.
“Agriculture is never fixed,” he said. “There’s always some problems.”
Mind you, he has used that philosophy to essentially wipe his hands of the sector, refusing to even consider developing a national agricultural policy that has at its core the belief that Canada needs a healthy, prosperous farm sector that is an integral part of the social and economic fabric of the so-called new economy.
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He and many of his ministers express their support for farmers but they have not converted those words into a predictable and adequate farm support policy as the Americans and Europeans have.
Even if they did, there still would be farm problems and disgruntled farmers.
So it’s election season and there are farm demonstrations, demands for more aid and intense pressure on politicians to DO SOMETHING.
For the sake of balance, it is important to keep in mind that governments already do many things for the agricultural sector, from several billion dollars in annual farm support spending to research, infrastructure and inspection.
Still, for all that, some farmers are left out, some struggle to make it and a large number figure that whatever government does, it is NOT ENOUGH. The exceptions to that rule, of course, are those farmers who object to government rules that restrict what they can do, which means that for them, government does TOO MUCH.
What’s a politician to do?
No matter what it is, it won’t be enough for some, too much for others and totally wrong-headed for still others.
Political options, it seems, are limited.
New Democrats support spending and defence of orderly marketing. At least on orderly marketing, a growing number of western farmers seem skeptical.
The Conservatives propose cost-of-production based farm support programs and refer back to the glory days of Tory rule when $4 billion a year in farm supports flowed. They must remember that farmers took that money and in 1993 gave all western Tories the boot.
That leaves the Canadian Alliance with its strange mix of free market rhetoric and support for supply management, criticism of Liberal spending but suggestions they would spend more on farmers, insistence that the Canadian Wheat Board lose its monopoly while not daring to go into Ontario and Quebec to suggest the same for the milk marketing boards.
In a way, when it comes to its self-styled image as the farmers’ friend, these may be the Alliance’s halcyon days. In opposition, solutions always seem clear.
If they ever find themselves in power, forced to deal with the challenges and complexities of agricultural policy, they quickly will find themselves under the gun from disgruntled farmers demanding that they DO SOMETHING.
What’s a politician to do?
