No other election candidate in Canadian history could recount a tale like this, since no other former governor-general has ever rejoined the political fray.
Ed Schreyer, New Democratic Party candidate in the Manitoba rural riding of Selkirk-Interlake, remembers the day 22 years ago when he signed into law a bill killing the historic Crowsnest freight rate, even though his prairie farm boy instincts were against it.
He was governor-general on Nov. 22, 1983, when the Liberal government of the day presented Bill C-75 to be proclaimed into law.
Read Also
Agriculture ministers agree to AgriStability changes
federal government proposed several months ago to increase the compensation rate from 80 to 90 per cent and double the maximum payment from $3 million to $6 million
That bill converted the 86-year-old statutory freight rate freeze into the capped Crow benefit that eventually was killed by a future Liberal government.
Schreyer, a former Manitoba NDP premier, had no choice but to sign, despite his personal support of the Crow. But the Liberal plan for a public Parliament Hill ceremony to mark the end of the Crow had no chance of getting him to attend.
“I did not do public photo op bill proclamations in my time as governor-general,” Schreyer said in a Jan. 15 interview. “But at the time, I also thought there was nothing to celebrate. I considered the Crow an untouchable piece of Canadian history.”
More than two decades later and almost three decades since his last foray into partisan politics, 70-year-old Schreyer has come out of retirement to try to wrest the riding from Conservative James Bezan, who won in 2004 with 48 percent of the vote and a more than 8,000 vote advantage.
Schreyer said the decline of the farm economy and rural areas is one of the key reasons he decided to jump back into active politics.
“I declared on Day 1 that one of the key reasons I took this unusual step at my age is my concern about farmers and rural areas,” Schreyer said in an interview from campaign offices in Arborg, Man.
He campaigns for better farm supports, defence and creation of marketing boards and co-operatives and promotion of ethanol and biodiesel.
Bezan, a 40-year-old cattle producer elected in 2004 after a career as a manager with the Manitoba Cattle Producers’ Association, said the emergence of NDP icon Schreyer as his opponent has not changed his campaign approach.
“There is a large agricultural interest,” he said in Stonewall, Man., Jan. 14. “There are 4,500 farm families and their income crisis is a huge interest even among those who are not directly connected to the farm. People say Liberal policies have not helped. They think it is time for a change.”
An early January voting intentions survey in the riding conducted by Winnipeg-based Probe Research Inc. found Bezan with a 10 percent advantage, holding almost the same percent of the vote he won in 2004.
“I think we are at the same position we were at in the last campaign and I’m comfortable we will win,” said Bezan. “I am promoting what has to happen in the future, not what happened in the past.”
Schreyer said things have changed since the poll: “We have the momentum and I would say we’re either neck-and-neck or more likely ahead.”
The Selkirk-Interlake riding that stretches from the northern edge of Winnipeg toward northern Manitoba has historically been a swing riding, represented by Conservatives, New Democrats and since 1997 by Reform-Alliance-Conservative MPs. Forty years ago when he was elected to Parliament for the first time, Schreyer represented part of the riding.
Farmers are a small percentage of the more than 90,000 residents, many of whom commute to jobs in Winnipeg, but the farm and food economy provides 58 percent of jobs in the riding and almost a quarter billion dollars in economic activity.
“The crisis in the farm economy affects businesses throughout the riding,” said Bezan. “People here want a change, a more supportive government.”
Schreyer said that one of the changes he has seen since his last political involvement is the spread of an anti-Canadian Wheat Board, anti-marketing board mood in the rural Prairies, accompanied by a rural decline.
“I find it incomprehensible that rural voters and farmers in Manitoba and Saskatchewan have elected Conservative candidates who would dismantle the wheat board,” he said.
“That would not have happened before. We’ll see what happens this time.”
