HALIFAX – Prominent Canadian public opinion pollster Darrell Bricker says Canadian farmers have the best chance in years to convince Ottawa that better policies are needed for rural Canada.
“The government in power right now cares more about what people in this room care about than we’ve seen in some time,” he told the Dairy Farmers of Canada annual meeting July 14.
Now is the time to lobby the federal government for program or policy changes they would like to see, he said.
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“You probably have a better chance for success than you’ve had for some time,” said Bricker, who once worked in the office of prime minister Brian Mulroney. “If you can’t make it happen now, I don’t know when you will.”
He said the fact the minority Conservative government caucus is at least half rural makes the current government more attentive to rural issues.
He cited promises to fund rural infrastructure and broadband access, as well as attention paid to issues such as the long gun registry, criminal justice bills and the Canadian Wheat Board as examples.
“I think they realize they must play to their base even as they look for support in suburban Canada,” he said. “Preceding governments really had more of an urban base and an urban agenda.”
At the same time, Bricker suggested that rural Conservative base is a declining factor in Canada. Rural is increasingly a marginalized part of the country.
“We have become an urban nation,” he said. “We are no longer split between being an urban or a rural nation. We are overwhelmingly urban.”
However, he suggested that the Conservative hammerlock on rural seats is an important base in the party’s search for a majority and makes them more attentive to rural issues.
It is a point agriculture minister Gerry Ritz makes as he argues that he does not have to fight as hard as earlier agriculture ministers in urban dominated governments to get farmer-friendly policies and funding.
“I’m in a very enviable position as compared with some of my former colleagues in that my prime minister and my cabinet understand rural Canada, understand farming and the vagaries they face in market access and weather-related programs,” he
said in a late June interview. “I’m in a lot more cushioned area than any Liberal minister ever was.”
Liberal Wayne Easter scoffs at the suggestion.
Agricultural spending has gone down under the Conservatives and the rural base is taken for granted, the party agriculture critic and former cabinet minister said.
“I’m sure rural caucus members speak up and rant and rave but the real decisions are made by the people around the prime minister and I honestly believe they believe rural Canada will support them no matter what,” he said. “I think they take the rural community for granted.”
Easter said the recent announcement about prairie flood aid is a prime example.
Ottawa’s share of the $450 million AgriRecovery spending will be $270 million.
“That’s fine and welcome but (former Liberal minister) Lyle Vanclief would get hell from farmers for announcing far more money than that,” said the veteran MP.
“I think Bricker is dead wrong on this. There is a perception of rural support but I don’t think the facts back it up.”
