Rural voters can expect to hear a gentler, more positive, less deficit-obsessed voice from Reform party candidates in the 1997 election, says a Reform party representative.
Reform will be the party of tax cuts, says Saskatchewan MP and agriculture spokesperson Elwin Hermanson.
It will be the party of rural child care.
It will be a party which criticizes the Liberals for cutting more out of farm support budgets than they said they would.
“We will be reminding farmers of Liberal promises to preserve programs, like the Crow Benefit, that have been broken,” Hermanson said in a Jan. 3 interview.
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In 1993, Reform won most rural western seats by campaigning on a platform of budget cuts and less government. The Liberals won government and then did more agricultural cutting than even Reform proposed.
“The cutting has essentially been done and I think that will be helpful for us,” Hermanson said. “We will be able to concentrate on more positive things. We may be looking at some small cuts in administration but they will not amount to much.”
The “positive” things will include a promise of tax cuts that will counter what Reform expects will be a Liberal emphasis on rural development.
“Our position on rural development will certainly be different from the Liberals,” he said. “If they are looking at new (rural development) programs that will cost money, we will be saying that we will be leaving so many dollars in farmers’ pockets to spend on what they think is important, that they can decide how rural Canada should develop, not government.”
Child care important
But for Hermanson, the deeper issue in rural Canada during this election could be child care.
In most parts of rural Canada, daycare is not available, he said. This is a deterrent for families who want to raise their children in a rural area.
Rather than support institutional daycare spaces exclusively, Reform is proposing that parents receive a child tax credit whether they raise the children themselves, bring in a babysitter or use a daycare.
“They would be the masters of their own child care arrangements and would not be penalized by the tax system,” he said. “I think this policy will be a real asset for Reform in rural and urban Canada.”
Reform MPs have complained the existing government tax policy penalizes stay-at-home parents by giving a tax break to those who pay for daycare and nothing to those who do their own child-rearing.
“I think too little attention in the rural policy debate has been paid to the quality of rural family life,” said the Saskatchewan grain farmer. “This will be a priority for us and I think it will be a winner.”
