Gerard Kennedy, former Ontario education minister, figures that the federal Liberal Party has for too long short-changed rural Canada by ignoring its issues.
Rural Canada outside the Atlantic region has returned the favour by abandoning the Liberals in recent elections.
“I really think we have disenfranchised our rural supporters by increasingly designing policy for the urban areas,” the federal Liberal leadership contender said in an interview.
“We haven’t shown sufficient respect for the rural lifestyle, rural values, rural sensibilities.”
As the candidate expected to place third in the first ballot of the Liberal party leadership vote in Montreal
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Dec. 1-2, Kennedy is angling to attract second ballot support from rural delegates.
Last week, he released the most detailed agricultural policy of any of the major Liberal leadership candidates, calling for a cost-of-production farm income policy, increasing the federal portion of cost-shared funding to at least 70 percent from the current 60 percent and increasing the lifetime capital gains tax exemption for farmers to at least $750,000 from $500,000.
“The Liberal Party simply has to send a signal that it understands the importance of rural Canada and agriculture to the nation,” said Kennedy, who likes to say he spent 13 years in the food business running food banks in Edmonton and Toronto.
“The only people who don’t take our food supply for granted are those who don’t have enough and those who produce it,” he said. “We have to change that neglect.”
He has been endorsed by former agriculture minister Eugene Whelan, party heavyweight Tom Axworthy and Justin Trudeau, son of the former prime minister.
Other leading Liberal leadership candidates also have spent some time dealing with rural issues and have their own high profile rural endorsements. All have said they support the Canadian Wheat Board monopoly against an assault by the governing Conservatives.
Toronto MP and expected first ballot leader Michael Ignatieff does not have a detailed agricultural policy but has spoken often of the unacceptable divide between rural and urban Canada. He has the support of prominent rural MPs including Liberal agriculture critic Wayne Easter.
Bob Rae, former New Democratic Party premier of Ontario, who is expected to place second in the first ballot, released an agricultural platform that vaguely promises to replace the Canadian Agricultural Income Stabilization program “with a better program that deals better with the challenges farmers face.”
Rae also promised more research investment and collaboration with other countries to create a more effective trade policy. Like other candidates, he said he supports development of a biofuel industry.
“These initiatives are a beginning, not an end,” said Rae.
“They are a start down the road to the development of a comprehensive agricultural policy framework developed in close consultation with farmers. Agriculture is one part of the Canadian economy that has been left behind.”
The fourth place, first ballot contender based on party member votes in September, Stéphane Dion, has spoken locally about farm environmental issues but has not produced a detailed farm platform.
Yet he has garnered support from former agriculture minister Lyle Vanclief, Saskatchewan Progressive Conservative-turned-Liberal David Orchard and farmer and Alberta Liberal president Adam Campbell.
As a former environment minister, Dion has promoted good farming practices to reduce greenhouse gases and he has promoted the benefits of organic farming.
“Time has run out for him to develop and publish a detailed program before the convention,” said Campbell. “I’d rather we didn’t have an agricultural policy than have a bad one.”
