CHARLOTTETOWN – As Prince Edward Island political scientist Peter McKenna sees it, the fight for next-door rural riding Malpeque will be decided by two seemingly contradictory factors.
If the national Conservative campaign appears to be winning, it would improve the chances that Conservative candidate Tim Ogilvie, retired dean of the Atlantic Veterinary College, could end the almost 23-year Liberal stranglehold on the riding.
“It seems small town, but in P.E.I. it still holds that the ability to deliver the pork carries a lot of weight with voters,” McKenna said. “And your chances of delivering clearly go up if voters think you will be on the government side.”
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However, if the national outcome is uncertain and the campaign reverts to traditional local issues of health care, jobs, employment insurance and resource sectors like agriculture and fisheries, the advantage goes to six-time incumbent Liberal MP Wayne Easter.
“I think this will be the most contested seat on the island and if it stays local, I think Ogilvie has a real challenge,” said the political commentator. “Wayne Easter has a long-standing connection to the district, they know him and he knows their names and here that is very important. Politics in P.E.I. are very personal politics.”
The candidates agree with that assessment.
“I think a lot depends on the momentum and the wave nationally,” Ogilvie said. “If it occurs for us, my chances are good. If it doesn’t happen, my chances are just fair. I have lived here a long time, but I know I have to get better known.”
He has a strong and positive image from his years at the vet college but lacks profile.
One other argument the Conservatives will use against Easter is that he is too prominent, too national. Government members constantly chide him that he speaks more about the Canadian Wheat Board than he does about P.E.I. issues.
“It is an issue,” Easter conceded. “Folks here like you to focus local but I am a national critic and it goes with the territory.”
Malpeque is the most agricultural riding in a province that is the most agriculture-dependent jurisdiction in the country.
It is the biggest economic generator and the riding includes two potato-processing plants and Atlantic Canada’s only federally registered beef plant.
Ogilvie said a key part of his campaign will be to promote a strong farm sector that creates income for farmers, manufacturing jobs and tourism. “Without strong agriculture, I can’t see anything that would keep P.E. I from becoming a gated seniors’ residence.”
Easter said the top doorstep issue for voters in the aging population is the health-care system, followed by the need for more jobs to keep the young home.
And while the parties will talk about their broader agricultural policies (Ogilvie promotes five years of Conservative support for farmers and Easter carries around a copy of government spending estimates for the year that projects about $400 million less agriculture spending), the issues that farmer voters usually raise are more local.
A visit to Allan and Melvin Ling’s beef and grain farm at Wheatley River illustrate the point.
Allan, chair of the Atlantic Grains Council, reduced the larger debate about the future of government investment in agricultural research to a very local issue.
“The wheat we grow in Atlantic Canada is a 20-year old variety and fusarium head blight is a growing problem,” he said.
Yet the wheat researcher is retiring and no replacement is being planned. “We need some renewal and that one issue affects us right where we live.”
