CHARLOTTETOWN, P.E.I. – The battle for rural votes in Atlantic Canada began Sept. 7 in the midst of a tropical storm that washed out roads, soaked farm fields and sent tonnes of red earth cascading into the ocean.
Conservatives in the region hope the weather was a harbinger of a political storm that will dislodge Liberals from some of the dozen rural seats they now hold.
On Prince Edward Island, solidly Liberal since 1988, the Conservatives have their eyes on one or maybe two seats with a particular push against Liberal agriculture critic Wayne Easter.
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“I do think several of those seats will be in play,” said Halifax pollster Don Mills, president of Corporate Research Associates, which recently completed a major survey of Atlantic Canadian political attitudes.
“The Liberal Green Shift will be a major factor. It will be a tough policy for the Liberals to sell.”
Canada’s 40th election, called by prime minister Stephen Harper for Oct. 14, will be a chance for voters to judge Harper’s 31 month, often-divisive minority government record, the credibility of rookie Liberal leader Stéphane Dion and the results of Jack Layton’s attempts to reshape the New Democratic Party.
For the first time, most voters across the country also will have the option of voting for a Green party candidate.
While the carbon tax and environmental policy debate will be common to rural ridings across the country, local issues and candidate appeal also will be at play.
On the Prairies, the federal campaign will coincide with Canadian Wheat Board elections and partisans on both sides of the issue will try to make the election a referendum on efforts by the Conservatives to end the board’s monopoly.
In Ontario’s vote-rich rural southwest, it will be a chance for voters to judge the Conservatives over their handling of the tobacco industry crisis. After months of saying no, the government this summer promised $300 million in a tobacco industry buyout.
Liberal Easter said he also wants the party platform to focus on how the Conservatives have been managing the food safety file and whether they were ready to sign a World Trade Organization deal in Geneva in July that would have undercut supply management despite Conservative promises of protection.
“This has not been a good government for farmers,” Easter said Sept. 7. “Safety nets are worse, food safety is in crisis, they’re running an ideological campaign against the wheat board and supply management farmers can’t trust them.”
Easter’s opponent Mary Crane countered: “We have a great story to tell. We have been a great government for farmers while Mr. Easter for 13 years sat in a Liberal government that grew disconnected from rural Canada.”
Farm organizations produced a list of issues with Ron Bonnett from the Canadian Federation of Agriculture saying his organization wants more regional flexibility in national safety net programs and a way to compensate farmers for the environmental benefits they provide Canadians.
The CFA is expected to organize a national agricultural debate during the campaign featuring agricultural critics answering farmer questions.
Although the Conservative government had a large rural caucus, the Ontario farmer said the presence of rural MPs is not really the test of whether government produces good rural policy.
“I think the key is their ability and willingness to listen to outside advice,” Bonnett said. “I don’t think it is a question of rural or urban but a question of responding to advice and of lobby groups positioning requests in a way that fits the government agenda.”
Grain Growers of Canada executive director Richard Phillips said the group wants to see a commitment to a grain costing study and implementation of transportation service review recommendations, support for ethanol and a promise that government will respond if a majority of prairie farmers ask that the wheat board monopoly be dismantled.
