TORONTO – In politics, they don’t make honeymoons like they used to.
Less than a year into its mandate after a strong election win over an unpopular Progressive Conservative regime, the Ontario Liberal government is running afoul of the province’s farm sector. Farm leaders accuse the government of rural insensitivity and promising far more than it has delivered.
During the October 2003 provincial election campaign, Liberal leader Dalton McGuinty promised that the ministry of agriculture would be one of his lead departments.
Instead, farmers have faced cuts in popular programs such as drainage funding and livestock improvement spending, while the government has launched a flurry of time-consuming consultations on land use and the future of Ontario agriculture.
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“There is a great deal of frustration among farmers and farm leaders,” Ontario Federation of Agriculture president Ron Bonnett said Sept. 2. “We are all feeling the pressure. I believe a lot of decisions are being made taking a look at issues from the point of view of urban Ontario without looking at the effect on rural areas and farmers.
“Many Ontario farmers and their organizations are unhappy with the McGuinty government’s current approach to dealing with the issues in the farming sector,” said Bonnett in a recent message to members.
Farmers have some specific complaints.
The decades-old drainage program was killed in August with little notice. Other program funding has been cut and negotiations over the rules of new manure management policies are slow.
Meanwhile agriculture minister Steve Peters has begun province-wide consultations on a new vision for agriculture and hearings have been launched on land use policies, co-chaired by former federal agriculture minister Lyle Vanclief.
“These all take our time and energy and in the end mean that the consultation simply isn’t meaningful,” said Bonnett. “It just becomes overwhelming.”
Then there is a farmer perception that the McGuinty government is reluctant to commit to new agricultural spending.
“I think Ontario is dragging its feet on taking part in a new BSE program because it would cost and all we hear about is the deficit.”
There also may be some nostalgia at play.
The PC government that McGuinty defeated had a strong rural caucus and agriculture minister Helen Johns was popular with farmers. The Liberal power base is much more urban.
Bonnett said the cabinet is largely urban, McGuinty appears to have forgotten his promises to farmers and the advisers within the government are not experienced in rural issues and don’t seem interested in learning.
“The Conservatives had advisers who were experienced and when they made suggestions that didn’t work for producers, they were willing to reconsider them,” said the OFA president. “The nutrient management rules were a case in point. I don’t see the same experience in this government or the same understanding of the need to have policies that work for producers.”
He said the problem is not as much Peters’ ministerial performance as the fact that he doesn’t appear to have much support in cabinet.
“We are going to be broadening our lobby approach to talk to other ministers as well to try to get a broader understanding where decisions are made.”
Peters was on holiday last week and unavailable to respond.
However, in at least one area – food inspection – the Liberals brag that they have reversed Conservative damage by ending the practice of contracting out inspection and allowing the public inspection system to erode. The Liberals have spent money to hire more than 120 inspectors as government employees.
