The further political parties are from power, the more they have been willing to offer farmers in this election campaign.
The Liberals are promising the least, the Tories and NDP the most and the Canadian Alliance is trying to convert its traditional western-based pro-free trade policy into a national policy full of contradictions.
That is how a panel of prairie-based economists and political analysts responded when asked to assess the agricultural policies of the four major parties.
“They all are pretty thin on detail,” said political analyst Roger Epp of Augustana University College in Camrose, Alta.
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“Many of the statements are so general they really don’t mean much without detail,” agreed Murray Fulton of the University of Saskatchewan.
But all said the Liberals were the most cautious, with vague promises of keeping an eye on farm incomes, working to reduce foreign subsidies and investing in research and value-added production.
“The Liberals really wrote this with an eye on trade rules, making sure that nothing they promised could be considered countervailable,” said University of Manitoba agricultural economist Daryl Kraft. “This could have been written in Geneva.”
All three agreed the Liberal prescription for farm aid is largely irrelevant to the problems facing prairie farmers.
“It seems to me the Liberals’ proposals were dictated by trade agreements,” said Fulton.
“They are saying that what they have done shows they care, but what they have done is create a safety net program that doesn’t pay enough to the people who need it.”
Meanwhile, as the Canadian Alliance struggled to appeal to farmers outside the West, it has promised a stout defence of supply management protectionism, even as it warned that trade deals signed by the Liberals may make inevitable the loss of protection for dairy, poultry and egg farmers.
Kraft suggested there is an inherent contradiction between the Alliance defence of supply management and its insistence that prairie farmers must lose their Canadian Wheat Board monopoly, no matter what the board of directors says.
“There is a clear contradiction there.”
He found the same problem with the Progressive Conservatives. The party favors supply management and a dual wheat and barley market, although on the wheat board monopoly issue, it says it will only move after a farmer referendum.
“They both seemed to ignore the fact that the Liberals have created the vehicle for getting rid of the monopoly if farmers want,” said Kraft.
“They can vote in a board that will demand a farmer vote.”
Epp saw the attempt to support compulsory marketing schemes in the East and voluntary schemes in the West as “sheer politics.”
The Tories and New Democrats have proposed an enriched farm safety net that the analysts said would leave Canada vulnerable to charges under North American and World Trade Organization rules.
But Epp said none of those farm policies seem to be the pivotal issue for western farm and rural voters.
“The biggest mystery for me is why C-68 (gun registry) should be the largest farm issue still,” said the Camrose teacher.
“Perhaps it is because it is a simple issue. The problems of trade and prices and incomes are far more complicated and therefore less easy to make a fundamental issue with a solution. In a way, it is disappointing.”
