The new minority Liberal government, re-elected with vastly reduced rural support, should make a special effort to reconnect with rural Canada, says former agriculture minister Lyle Vanclief.
With a Liberal caucus heavily weighted to urban seats, and prime minister Paul Martin looking for support from a New Democratic Party bereft of rural MPs, there is a danger Ottawa will play to its urban strength and not its rural weakness.
“I hope the government doesn’t say it is the urban voters who elected us so that’s who we play to,” Vanclief said in a July 8 interview.
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“They will neglect the rural issues at their peril. The last election shows that you cannot elect a national majority government without rural support.”
Vanclief did not offer an analysis of why the Liberals lost rural support, although some analysts have suggested the agricultural policy framework created during his term caused uncertainty and farmer resentment in the midst of the worst farm income results in recorded Canadian history. The APF included an unprecedented $5.2 billion in guaranteed federal farm program funding over five years, but also left farmers uncertain about the shape and adequacy of their new safety net.
However, he did note that the much-discussed rural lens that cabinet applied to policies will be clouded because so few rural MPs are available for the cabinet table.
“The rural-urban split clearly is an issue that the new government must confront,” said Vanclief from his Belleville, Ont., home.
“Agriculture is a sector of our economy that creates incredible wealth and affects many sectors and people. It cannot be neglected.”
His own Prince Edward-Hastings riding east of Toronto fell to the Conservatives after Vanclief won it four consecutive times before retiring after being dropped from cabinet by Martin.
He will supplement his $110,000 pension with some consulting work. The international government relations and consulting firm Hill and Knowlton has hired Vanclief to drum up business in the agriculture and food sector. He is prohibited by law from directly lobbying his old department for two years, but still will be able to offer strategic advice on how to do it.
Vanclief said the Hill and Knowlton work will take a quarter of his time or more, depending on the clients and the contracts. He will work from home.
He also is co-chair of a consultation organized by the Liberal Ontario government into land use rules in the greenbelt area around Toronto.
Trips planned
As well, Vanclief will lead academic delegations to Russia in the autumn and China in the spring to try to forge research and academic ties between universities in those countries and Canadian institutions, particularly his alma mater University of Guelph.
“I have a very interesting array of projects and there will be more,” said Vanclief. “I am looking forward to the next little while.”
