NDP targets business management programs, water management and conservation, and grain transportation
The Saskatchewan Party bills itself as the party of rural Saskatchewan with good reason.
Since forming government in 2007, it has held every rural seat and could do so again after the April 4 election.
At the recent Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities convention, leader Brad Wall received a standing ovation after appealing to the “basic character, the basic goodness of our province” and “the values that are very much a part of our identity” that he sees in rural Saskatchewan.
NDP leader Cam Broten received polite applause for admitting past NDP government mistakes.
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The most recent polls show while the Sask. Party is at 46.4 percent in Regina and 55.1 percent in Sask-atoon, it holds 59.2 percent support in rural areas.
Those polls show the NDP at 40.5 percent in Regina, 37.1 percent in Saskatoon and 28 percent in rural areas.
Both parties released their platforms last week. While many of the promises, such as infrastructure spending, affect rural residents, the Sask. Party offered nothing specific for farm voters. The NDP, however, presented a list of measures to strengthen the agricultural sector.
Lyle Stewart, agriculture minister in the Sask. Party government, is seeking re-election in the redrawn boundary of Lumsden-Morse.
“As far as ag goes, we generally try to let the industry lead. There’s been no hue and cry for new ag programs. We’ll just continue to be supportive of the industry,” he said.
The NDP platform includes pledges to improve business risk management programs, implement a comprehensive water management and conservation strategy, improve grain transportation through a number of measures and protect producers’ rights.
An NDP government would require grain companies to have clear contracts that identify price, delivery location, payment terms and a resolution process, its platform said. It would also establish weekly inputs and grain price reports and review the allocation of producer cars.
The NDP also would modernize surface rights legislation, establish a Farmers’ Advocate Office, cancel the Crown land sale program that includes punitive rents for those who don’t buy it, and work with Ottawa to stop the federal pasture transition and re-open the tree nursery at Indian Head.
Local producers would supply food for health, education and correctional facilities, the document said.
The Sask. Party, meanwhile, is running on its record, offering six new platform expenditure commitments and none of them directly aimed at agriculture.
Its platform listed increasing exports, a $388 million investment over five years to Growing Forward 2, and reducing education tax on agricultural land by 80 percent among its agricultural accomplishments.
It promised to reduce red tape so that home-based food businesses could prepare low-risk foods such as cookies and bread at home and sell directly to coffee shops and other outlets.
Wall had said the platform wouldn’t contain many promises or cost a lot, given the lack of revenue from the energy sector. The new commitments are projected to cost $105 million over four years.
Meanwhile, the Green Party of Saskatchewan promises an ex-panded crop insurance program to cover losses due to contamination from genetically modified crops and tornado insurance for property damage on a farm.
It would launch an agricultural transportation strategy, replace the surface rights arbitration board with a fair compensation board, and create a ministry of rural revitalization to oversee projects such as expanded high speed internet access in rural areas.
The PC Party of Saskatchewan would also implement an im-proved crop insurance program including measures to compensate farmers who store water on their land, break-even payments on lost crops and a crown purchase program for land in the Quill Lakes basin that is now permanently flooded. It also proposes a 10-year transportation strategy with improved short-line rail.
The PC Party has long been vocal about the province’s farmland ownership laws and proposes a restructured farmland security board.
The Saskatchewan Liberals’ lone reference to farming comes in its promise to provide low interest loan guarantees for farmers to build wind power or solar generation facilities on their land.
karen.briere@producer.com
