Rural voters played a major role in returning Stephen Harper and his Conservative party to power with a stronger minority in the House of Commons.
More than half of the 143 seats won by the Conservatives were largely rural, including almost all prairie seats. The Conservatives swept rural Ontario and for the first time since 1984, won a rural seat in Prince Edward Island.
The result, with a historic low popular vote percentage for the Liberals and a loss of 27 seats from the last election, will drive Liberal leader Stéphane Dion from his two-year-old job. He announced Oct. 20 that he will step down next spring when a new leader is chosen.
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While the Conservatives still fell 12 seats short of the 155 seats needed to form a majority in the Oct. 14 election, they won a strong endorsement from most farm voters. That despite the fact they made few promises to farmers, offering an ill-defined $500-million, four-year agri-flex fund for regionally designed programs, a $50 million program for regional packers and a promise of continued support for supply management. They also promised an end to the Canadian Wheat Board barley monopoly on sales of everything but domestic feed.
Farm leaders immediately said the government needs to explain its promises and concentrate on whether recently revised farm safety net programs will meet the needs of farmers facing declining commodity prices and high input costs.
“The Conservatives have strong support on the rural and agricultural side so it makes it very important that they take a look at the issues that concern rural Canada, including the farm safety net system and their proposal for regional flexibility,” said Canadian Federation of Agriculture vice-president Ron Bonnett.
British Columbia producer Ross Ravelli, president of Grain Growers of Canada, said the farm economy should be a key priority for the new government.
“I think the government will need to put a real magnifying glass on the safety nets issue to see if they are adequate,” he said. “Commodity prices are falling but input prices are not, or at least not as much. And I know in some sectors, producers are worried that their margins are small or nonexistent. Will those programs work for them?”
National Farmers Union president Stewart Wells said that with the new government willingness to shore up the financial health of banks, the new government also should consider farmer liquidity and the massive $54 billion debt that Canadian farmers have accumulated.
He said the NFU also expects the re-elected Conservative government to resurrect attempts to end the CWB monopoly.
Within hours of the Conservative victory, Western Canadian Wheat Growers Association and Grain Growers of Canada leaders called on the Conservatives to move quickly to fulfill a campaign promise that the wheat board barley monopoly will be ended.
Opposition MPs vowed that despite their reduced numbers, they will continue to thwart Conservative efforts to do an end run around the rules established in the Canadian Wheat Board Act.
“The CWB issue will definitely be on our radar screen and I can tell you if the government tries this again, it will not succeed because they don’t have the numbers,” said re-elected Liberal agriculture critic Wayne Easter from his Prince Edward Island riding.
The election, while denying Conservatives their coveted majority, still had some party officials crowing.
They completed their domination of agriculture-dependent ridings in Ontario, won in a number of suburban and urban Ontario ridings, made significant gains in British Columbia and picked up some rural Maritime seats. Failure to make gains in Quebec killed majority hopes.
Election night produced mixed results for former farm leaders.
Former Canadian Federation of Agriculture president and Liberal candidate Bob Friesen was soundly defeated in a Winnipeg riding while former National Farmers Union president Nettie Wiebe lost in a Saskatoon riding by just 200 votes.
Former NFU president Easter won election for the sixth time in his P.E.I. riding while former Western Canadian Wheat Growers Association presidents Ted Menzies and Randy Hoback won their seats in Macleod, Alta., and Prince Albert, Sask.
The election also increased the number of urban and suburban MPs in the enlarged Conservative caucus, and University of Calgary political scientist David Taras suggested that may change the rural focus of the Conservative caucus even though rural MPs still dominate.
“Demographically, the Conservative caucus really has changed to reflect more ethnic votes and more urban votes,” he said. “Inevitably, that means the rural focus will be diluted somewhat.”
Roger Epp, dean of the Augustana campus of the University of Alberta in Camrose, said the latest election is part of an increasing trend that sees rural voters overwhelmed by urban voters in influence or rural-urban ridings that are predominately urban.
“Rural Canada increasingly is hidden within the electoral map,” he said.
“And urban Canada is where Stephen Harper and the Conservatives have to grow.”
