The Conservative Party is offering a modest proposal to farmers in its 2011 election campaign platform, with small on-farm innovation funding and a revival of items in its defeated budget.
Total new spending offered is slightly more than $200 million over five years. But on the ground in rural Alberta last week, other issues were holding more sway with voters.
Conservative candidates were echoing the platform promises of more free trade deals and investment in innovation, which they say the Liberals opposed by defeating the March 22 budget.
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But candidates said one of the greatest factors keeping farmers in their ridings content are higher prices.
“This is the most positive mood of the three elections I’ve been in,” said Westlock-St. Paul candidate and two-time MP Brian Storseth. “My guys are making some money after some tough years.”
In the Macleod riding south of Calgary, Conservative incumbent Ted Menzies recounted a visit to a yearling sale where prices were the best in a decade.
“The cattle guys are very positive,” he said. “They have taken a beating in the past few years so they’ll happily take these prices.”
He said grain farmers in the riding he has represented since 2004 are more uneasy because of the spring moisture conditions and the fact that despite high prices, they often cannot sell their 2010 crop.
“I’ve got guys with 60 or 70 percent of their harvest from last year still in the bins and now they can’t get to them because of the water,” he said April 9.
While fingers point in several directions over the failure to move last year’s crop, he said much of the blame is directed at the railway.
“It makes the rail service review a big issue in my riding,” said Menzies, minister of state for finance.
The Conservative platform unveiled last week also includes the promise of a national food strategy, a key demand of the Canadian Federation of Agriculture.
“To ensure our continuing efforts to support farmers are as effective as possible, we will develop a National Farm and Food Strategy to guide federal policy through the coming years,” said the platform, released April 8 by prime minister Stephen Harper. “The strategy will build on our efforts to sustain the Canadian family farm, to strengthen food safety, and to open new markets for the world-class products of Canadian farmers.”
A specific promise would include more money for the agriculture market development secretariat working to open new markets and a promise to conclude free trade deals with the European Union and India.
It promises to revise regulations to give Canadian farmers access to the same inputs available to their international competitors.
“A re-elected Conservative government will make regulatory reforms to provide easier access to the best fertilizers, pesticides and veterinary drugs being used in other countries while maintaining and improving Canada’s high regulatory standards,” said a party background document.
Harper also promised to revise budget measures defeated in Parliament including a $50 million two-year Agricultural Innovation Initiative and a $100 million increase in Canadian Food Inspection Agency funding over five years.
The platform also pledged support for Canada’s protected supply management system.
