New Democrat MP Carol Hughes told the Canadian Federation of Agriculture last week that the NDP is the party that defends farmer rights in Parliament.
She told the annual CFA convention Feb. 24 that the party tries to promote farmer interests, whether it is defending the Canadian Wheat Board, supporting local agriculture or introducing a private member’s bill that would have required an economic analysis of potential export market harm before new genetically modified varieties are approved.
“New Democrats have a bias,” she said. “We are on the side of the family farmer.”
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Hughes, a first-term MP from northern Ontario with little farm policy background, was filling in for NDP leader Jack Layton, who was resting last week on doctor’s orders.
She said the Conservative government, which represents most rural seats in Canada, takes farmers and their support for granted.
“In the past 15 years, farm debt has tripled, we have lost 80,000 Canadian farms and the number of young farmers has gone from 77,000 to 22,000,” she said.
“It is shameful that this government has no plan to ensure Canada has a strong farming community and thereby ensure a healthy and affordable food supply for the future.”
Hughes also said the NDP supports prairie farmers’ complaints that they are being overcharged by the railways on their freight bill.
“Where is that railway costing review we so dearly need?”
When question period arrived, the MP quickly noted that she was not the agriculture critic and likely would not have all the answers.
CFA delegates were gentle, praising her for appearing but also suggesting that the NDP be broader in its farm policy proposals.
They said the party needs to move beyond its skepticism about genetically modified varieties, support of organic farming, opposition to trade deals that open markets for farm exports and focus on small farms and local production.
“We cannot feed the world only farming organically,” Ontario Federation of Agriculture vice-president Mark Wales told Hughes.
He said the party should rethink its definition of “sustainable agriculture.”
OFA president Bette Jean Crews said the party’s hostility to GM varieties is a problem for many farmers who consider these varieties an important part of their business plans.
Without committing the party or agriculture critic Alex Atamanenko to anything, Hughes said the party was open to working with farmers to tweak party policy.
“We’re not going to tell you how to farm,” she said.
“We are open to discussing refining the platform if it needs to be.”
While critics like to characterize the NDP as an urban party, Hughes reminded the convention that it is a political offspring of the CCF that was a coalition of farm and labour interests.
And since the 2008 election, the NDP caucus in Ottawa has been one-third rural with rural seats in British Columbia, Manitoba, Ontario, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia.
“We have a vigorous rural presence around our table.”
However, for several elections the party has been shut out of the rural Prairies that once formed a solid core of the NDP caucus.
As recently as 1988, 10 of the party’s 43 seats in Parliament came from Saskatchewan.
