In July 2003, while in the midst of his campaign to unseat then-prime minister Jean Chrétien as Liberal leader, Paul Martin made some sweeping commitments to Canadian farmers.
“I am making a commitment to you, and through you to Canada’s farmers, to work with our government caucus and with farm organizations to take all action reasonably possible to secure the industry’s future,” Martin wrote to Canadian Federation of Agriculture president Bob Friesen.
Four months later at a November meeting with farm leaders in Regina just weeks before becoming prime minister, Martin expanded the promise, pledging to revolutionize the way Ottawa deals with farmers.
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In mid-December 2005, as he announced his party’s agriculture election platform, Martin continued his pledges of sympathy and support.
“Too often farmers face challenges that the rest of us never have to overcome,” he said on a farm near Chatham, Ont. “And that’s why we have stood behind our farmers and we will continue to do so.”
But two years into his prime ministership, some of the farm leaders say they are underwhelmed by Martin’s record on changing agriculture policy and government attitudes.
“I don’t really believe there has been the kind of change he promised,” said Manitoba farm leader David Rolfe, president of Keystone Agricultural Producers. “There perhaps have been some chinks of change but there certainly has not been wholesale change. I think it has to be seen as disappointing.”
In Ontario, farm leader Ron Bonnett was more blunt.
“He promised to work with farmers and to listen to farmers,” said the president of the Ontario Federation of Agriculture. “On the issue of the CAIS (Canadian Agricultural Income Stabilization program) deposit, farmers were pretty much unanimous in saying there should be no deposit. They changed a deposit to a fee, same thing. I’m less than enthusiastic about the performance. I think Mr. Martin has a lot to live up to. I don’t really see much change.”
CFA president Bob Friesen noted that during Martin’s two years, there have been consecutive record program payments. “Of course, there has been a record problem. I would say there has not been a big reversal in the way they look at and deal with agriculture but at least they have been responding to the need and responding to our messages.”
Ironically, Martin used his recent campaign message on agriculture to suggest once again that he is prepared to embrace a different vision for agricultural policy.
In 2003, he was promising to act on recommendations from a report on agriculture prepared by a Liberal caucus task force led by Bob Speller. He picked Speller as his agriculture minister but the Ontario MP was defeated six months later.
In 2005, Martin is promising to act on the recommendations in a report prepared by MP Wayne Easter. That report was highly critical of the government’s traditional attitude that farm problems are an efficiency issue rather than one of market power.
In a late December interview from his Prince Edward Island riding, Easter said he considers Martin’s endorsement of the report a sign that he is prepared to embrace farm sector solutions rather than the economic efficiency models long promoted by Agriculture Canada economists.
