Where is prime minister Jean ChrŽtien while prairie farmers are going broke?
Reform party leader Preston Manning raised the issue in Parliament Oct. 25, and taunted the prime minister to cast his eye toward the prairie farm crisis and do something.
During an all-day Reform-initiated agricultural debate, Manning said farmers need an indication that ChrŽtien cares.
“The prime minister has consistently absented himself from every major discussion of this issue in the House since he became prime minister six years ago,” Manning said.
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“The prime minister’s continued indifference to this issue is an insult to farmers everywhere in this country, particularly in the West.”
ChrŽtien, working upstairs, did not take part in the debate but agriculture minister Lyle Vanclief did appear to defend the government.
He said the government is working to help farmers in distress. The minister also drew some fire by insisting the overall farm income situation is not as bad as opposition MPs say.
“I want to remind all (MPs) that the fundamentals of the agriculture and food sector remain on the whole very positive. On a national basis, farm income is only slightly below the five-year average,” said Vanclief.
He did acknowledge “some commodities in some regions are in trouble.”
Manning compared that to Tory prime minister R.B. Bennett during the Great Depression insisting the country was stronger than the critics said.
The all-day House of Commons debate was a precursor to this week’s Ottawa lobby by Manitoba and Saskatchewan premiers and farm leaders.
It set the stage for a political week in Ottawa during which farmer incomes will play a prominent role.
Reform speakers called for tax cuts, a reduction in government-imposed user fees, a stronger federal effort to win international subsidy cuts and more money to help Canadian farmers being hit by price-depressing foreign subsidies.
Liberal, Tory and New Democrat speakers called Reform hypocritical for demanding government cuts on one hand and increased government support on the other.
New Democrat MP Dick Proctor saw Reform’s conservative hand behind Liberal cuts.
“When the Liberal government heard the Reform party’s agriculture proposal to shift from government supported (industry) to an industry shaped by market forces, it put on its happy face and moved as quickly as possible to accommodate those recommendations,” he said. “It did so by taking a meat axe to government programs relating to agriculture.”
Progressive Conservative Rick Borotsik said Reform was not credible, given its record of demands for cuts.
But by the end of the day, Liberal MPs were painting Reform as the irresponsible big spending machine prepared to wreck federal finances to help one sector.
