The Saskatchewan Party pulled it off again. It rolled into power for the second time Nov. 7, but with a historic popular vote majority that unequivocally states that the province – including the rural part – is behind it.
The party did it without any significant nod to agriculture during the entire campaign, which, if you look at Saskatchewan’s electoral past, is quite the feat.
Indeed, the election campaign overall was relatively devoid of agricultural policy declarations and certainly agricultural debate. Not one mention of agriculture was made in the televised debate between premier Brad Wall and then-NDP leader Dwain Lingenfelter.
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Neither party considered agriculture a priority in their platforms, either. In fact, Wall said that his party’s agriculture policy would remain unchanged.
There were a few tweaks: improvements to crop insurance; increasing the unseeded acreage benefit to $70 from $50 per eligible acre; expanding agricultural extension offices; and taking over administration of the AgriStability fund, which is operated federally in some jurisdictions.
That was about it, but Saskatchewan’s rural communities voted for the party anyway. What does this mean?
It could be that farms are getting larger and farmers less political, being in more of a business frame of mind than a rural policy frame of mind. That would certainly lead increasingly to more conservative votes.
It could also be that producers were voting on other issues.
It was also a pretty good year in Saskatchewan, unless you were flooded out, so there were fewer issues for farmers to worry about.
No pressing issues to speak of; ergo, no debate.
The Manitoba election campaign was similar, with the incumbent New Democrats only concerning themselves with Winnipeg voters and even campaigning on placing tougher restrictions on hog barn operations to improve water conditions in Lake Winnipeg.
In Alberta, even though rural Albertans form a Conservative power base, the Conservatives almost ignore rural policies during election campaigns, assuming those votes to be almost sure things. In the recent race for the Progressive Conservative leadership, which in Alberta amounts to electing the premier, agriculture was not a big issue for any of the six candidates.
Agriculture seems to have faded from the election radar screen in all three prairie provinces. When times are good, that may not be a big problem. But good times are not known to last forever. Not discussing agricultural issues at election time could well come back to bite the most popular prairie government.
For example, the Canadian Wheat Board was largely treated as a fait accompli during the recent federal election. More rural debate on the single desk would have been useful, since many farmers who voted Conservative still support the monopoly.
Furthermore, insurance programs such as AgriStability are up for renegotiation in the near future. Would it not be helpful to have some debate on such programs before returning to the bargaining table?
As agriculture debate fades, the amount of control and influence rural people have on policy wanes. In addition, vision is unlikely to develop in an environment where our politicians think their policies are good enough.
The lack of discussion does not bode well for advanced farm policies that are good for rural people and agriculture.
Perhaps it behooves the people of Saskatchewan and other prairie provinces to remind their governments that agriculture is still an important part of their economies, and it is likely to get bigger.
That means prairie governments should be devising visionary policies instead of just catching up with farmers when things go wrong.
Bruce Dyck, Terry Fries, Barb Glen, D’Arce McMillan and Joanne Paulson collaborate in the writing of Western Producer editorials.
