They said they didn’t want to get partisan.
But some of the Reform MPs couldn’t help themselves.
“We have to replace the government to bring in real long-term change,” said Saskatoon-Humboldt MP Jim Pankiw to about 40 farmers gathered in Langham, Sask., last week to talk about the farm financial crunch.
Blackstrap MP Allan Kerpan criticized Saskatchewan’s NDP government, saying he thinks Eric Upshall should be fired for suggesting the farm cash crisis isn’t as deep as thought a few months ago.
Yorkton MP Garry Breitkreuz denounced the federal government’s agriculture policy.
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“There isn’t one,” he said to the farmers. “We’re the only ones that have developed an agriculture policy.”
Reform agriculture critic Howard Hilstrom and Wanuskewin MP Maurice Vellacott tempered the political rhetoric in order to discuss the best way for government to help farmers through tough times.
“We don’t want to be partisan,” said Hilstrom. “I really don’t think it’s right.”
The MPs also talked with farmers about the Estey report and distributed a survey to gauge their views.
The town hall meeting was one in a series organized by the Reform party and held across rural Saskatchewan in early January. Others are being held in Manitoba.
People at the meetings revealed an array of concerns, including the federal government’s farm aid package. Some fear the package won’t reach farmers who need it. Others suggested it isn’t enough.
A few argued that no cash aid is needed. One said input taxes should be slashed instead. The other said the government should simply raise the price of wheat and barley.
One farmer complained that farmers are the only people in the world who have to pay the cost of transportation of their products. Another said it is hard for young farmers to find good off-farm jobs unless they have a good education.
Profound dissatisfaction with the state of farming today was summarized by one farmer: “It’s not that the bad years are so bad, but that the good years aren’t good enough to recover.”
Many in the crowd nodded assent.
Saskatoon farmer John Schreiner offered a grim forecast of the future of prairie farming.
“We’re going to end up with no more young farmers, end up with natives owning the land and corporate farmers farming it.”
While MPs from other political parties were not invited to the meetings, some provincial politicians were there.
A Liberal MLA, an NDP MLA and a Saskatchewan Party MLA were at the Jan. 14 Langham meeting.
Leaving out other federal politicians from the taxpayer-funded town halls was a Reform party choice, said organizer Al Chant.
Parliament provides money for MPs to communicate with their constituents, and that’s what these meetings did.
Chant said Canadian Wheat Board minister Ralph Goodale was invited to attend another Reform party town hall last year, and didn’t show up.
He added that other political parties could be holding meetings like these, and the reason they aren’t “is something you might want to ask them.”
