FERGUS, Ont. – Rarely has a pre-election promise of three-quarters of a billion dollars in government help meant so little to so many.
In battleground rural Ontario where Conservatives and Liberals are battling over as many as 40 competitive seats that could well decide which party forms the next government, Andy Mitchell’s late November $755 million farm aid announcement appears to have almost no coattails.
“The farmers in my riding simply don’t believe it,” said Conservative Michael Chong, running for re-election in the agriculture-heavy Wellington-Halton Hills riding northwest of Toronto.
Read Also
Final crop reports show strong yields, quality
Crops yielded above average across the Prairies this year, and quality is generally average to above-average.
“They have waited so long for help and then to hear the announcement days before an election, they are cynical. They don’t expect to see it.”
Even Liberal candidates like Jeff Wesley, in a fight to retain the London-area Lambton-Kent-Middlesex riding held since 1993 by retiring Rose-Marie Ur but won last time by fewer than 200 votes, is not making the announcement a centrepiece of his campaign.
“It was a strong statement that we recognize our farmers need help but we recognize this is not the long-term answer we need and that is what I am committing to work on,” he said in a Dec. 3 interview.
In fact, some Ontario farmers talk as if the announcement, with its expected $123 million allotment to Ontario, is more of a millstone for Liberal candidates than a boost. Ontario farm organizations have united in calling for $300 million a year from Ottawa for three years.
“I just think the farmers have become tired of being stonewalled by the Liberals with a lot of pie-in-the-sky announcements that sound good but don’t deliver,” Sarnia-area farmer and Ontario Federation of Agriculture director Robert Johnston said Dec. 3.
“The Liberals have a lot to answer for and I don’t think this is an answer that will win them any votes.”
Added Conservative agriculture critic Diane Finley, running for re-election in rural Haldimand-Norfolk riding: “That $755 million is being viewed very, very cynically here. There are doubts they’ll ever see it.”
In fact, a senior Agriculture Canada official in charge of writing delivery rules for the announcement confirmed last week that initial cheques likely will not be going out before the Jan. 23 election. The Conservatives have said they will review all the Liberals’ multi-billion dollar pre-election promises if they are elected.
“We are targeting to have initial payments out to producers as quickly as possible,” senior business risk management official Danny Foster said. “This most likely means a late January to March 2006 timeframe.”
The aid announcement landed with a thud in a broad swath of ridings throughout Ontario where farmers and their issues affect the election outcome.
Although traditionally Conservative, the 40 or so seats became a crucial part of Liberal majority governments in 1993, 1997 and 2000 election.
Last year, almost half those seats returned to the Conservative fold and many that did not have been targeted this time by the party.
Historian and former Liberal MP John English, biographer of prime minister Lester B. Pearson, said in an interview the tide is in the Conservatives’ favour in rural Ontario.
“Those seats were lost and rural Ontario ceased to be Liberal country by the time of Pearson,” English said. “It was an anomaly, because of the break in the right, that the Liberals won them through the Nineties. I believe rural Ontario, now that there is a credible single conservative voice, is returning to its roots. It started last year. I expect it will become more pronounced this election.”
