Federal Liberals, battered by their worst election result in Canadian history, have agreed that re-establishing a connection to rural voters is crucial as the party rebuilds.
It means moving beyond sympathetic agricultural and rural leaders to connect with individual voters who have been less receptive to the Liberal message than their leaders.
Deputy leader Ralph Goodale said members attending a Aug. 29-31 Parliament Hill meeting acknowledged the party largely represents cities.
Except for a small contingent of Maritime MPs, rural voters largely rejected the Liberals in the May 2 election, as they have in recent elections. Several more rural MPs fell this year.
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Seats with a significant rural population represent close to one-third of the House of Commons, so a lack of rural support means the party will begin the next election campaign discounting electoral prospects in a large swath of seats.
“The issue of our failure to connect to rural voters came up several times,” Goodale said as the caucus meeting ended.
He has been elected seven consecutive times in a Regina riding that is partly rural, as well as serving one-term in the 1970s.
“The hard reality is that there are no short cuts to re-establishing the party’s credibility with rural voters,” he said.
It will require a regular party presence in rural ridings and less reliance on rural and farm leaders.
Goodale said leader Michael Ignatieff spent considerable time developing rural policy and meeting with rural leaders in the last election, often getting good reviews for his proposals to rewrite farm support programs, defend the Canadian Wheat Board and support Ontario’s Risk Management Program with federal money.
“A number of these proposals were well received in rural Canada,” said Goodale. “When I say rural Canada, it tends to be the heads of organizations and leading spokespersons. We have not permeated rural Canada with the substance of the message. Our communications capacity with rural people was very small.”
Former federal agriculture minister Bob Speller was one of those rural Liberals defeated May 2. It was his second attempt to regain a southwestern Ontario seat he lost in 2004 after representing it for 16 years.
He said he thought the Liberal message was getting through during the campaign and that he had a chance against Conservative cabinet minister Diane Findlay. In the end, she attracted more than 50 percent of the vote.
“A decade ago, we (Liberals) held all of rural Ontario,” Speller said.
“We are not connecting now and it comes down to stressing issues that connect with people like jobs and infrastructure investment. But to reestablish that connection with rural voters is going to take a lot of work and a lot of years.”
