Senator Hugh Segal was well into middle age when he first realized the importance of an issue that has become a cause for this urban academic – the extent and effects of rural poverty.
In 1998, he briefly abandoned life as an academic and public policy analyst to run for the leadership of the Progressive Conservative party.
“During that campaign, I travelled a lot across the country and I was shocked by what I saw in rural Canada, the extent and depth of poverty, the exodus of kids leaving the farm,” he said. “We are facing a rural crisis that is largely unknown in urban Canada and that would not be considered acceptable in any other sector of the country. I hope to help get a debate started.”
Read Also
Saskatchewan farmer uses tile drainage to manage water
The integration of both irrigation and tile drainage results in higher yields, water efficiency, improved soils and less nutrient runoff, says one producer.
This week, the Senate agriculture committee meets to begin planning an extensive study into the issue of rural poverty, a study proposed by Segal as one of his first parliamentary actions after being appointed in 2005.
Segal, a former chief of staff to Conservative prime minister Brian Mulroney, sits as a Conservative in the Upper Chamber.
He expects the committee will begin with hearings in Ottawa. Officials from Statistics Canada, Agriculture Canada and perhaps other departments will be asked to appear to talk about poverty definitions and the statistical situation in rural Canada.
Agriculture minister Chuck Strahl will be summoned as a witness to explain his $550 million Options program for low income farm families.
Then the committee will head out for hearings across the country.
“We will want to get into smaller places where the people affected by this live,” he said. “We want them to understand we are coming to them because we want to hear first-hand their experience.”
However, Segal also conceded that it may be difficult to attract witnesses willing to talk in public about their financial troubles: “I concede that may be one of the hurdles we have.”
The 55 year old has been a senior player on corporate boards and a political studies professor at Queen’s University in Kingston, as well as president of the Montreal-based Institute for Research on Public Policy in Canada.
He is an advocate of a guaranteed annual income for poor Canadians.
Last winter when Segal spoke about the issue to the annual meeting of the Canadian Federation of Agriculture, he estimated that at least two million rural Canadians live below the poverty line. It leads to tension, depression, suicide, family violence and farm failures, he said.
“If we are not prepared to do something about it, we are condemning people to live in a prison of collapsed expectations and little hope because they live in rural Canada,” he said.
But Segal complained that the rest of Canada is ignoring the reality.
