Recycled Tory leader Joe Clark is working hard to be seen as the farmer’s friend these days. Okay, it is easy to be cynical about politicians when they occasionally cast a glance sideways and discover that they love farmers.
What do they want? What’s in it for them?
So let’s get the cynicism over Clark’s concern about farmers out of the way quickly.
No one will know better than Clark that the Tories – for a generation the party of Prairie farmers and rural Canada – have been shut out of farm country in the past two elections.
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So as he tries to make the Conservatives a credible political force again, rural Canada is a logical place to target.
Besides, there is a farm income problem, the Liberals have been slow to recognize it, Reform does not support short-term cash injections and Clark can argue the billions spent on farm income supports by past Tory governments gives him credibility.
It all means this is a good and logical issue with which he can make political hay. But it seems more than that.
Last week, Clark used his first news conference as leader to call on the Liberals to spend some money.
When a reporter asked why he was making farm aid his first issue, the former Alberta MP smiled the wan smile of a politician facing a slow pitch sailing slowly toward the strike zone.
“I think it is a real crisis,” he said. “There is a price tag to helping farmers in crisis.”
For most political leaders in Canada, that would have been the end of it – a news conference to flag the commitment to the issue. Then, leave the details to the issue critics.
But Monday night and again Tuesday noon, Clark was at it again.
He used fund raising dinners in Edmonton and Saskatoon this week to reinforce his plea for farm aid.
He mentioned that he had taken on the issue during “my third day on this job.”
And he said it would cost taxpayer dollars. “Our program would have a cost, about $276 million. But it would also have a consequence, helping keep in business an industry and a way of life which are essential to Canada’s future.”
Clark used the speech to lambast both Reform, for not supporting immediate cash, and the Liberal government.
“There is no voice at the ChrŽtien cabinet that cares enough and is strong enough to help Canadian farmers weather one of their most serious crises.”
It was, of course, a message designed to sell in the agriculturally aware Prairies.
It will be more impressive if he uses his new soapbox to spread the message of farmer importance in Central Canada, where the urban votes are.
Still, party insiders insist this will not be a one-time effort by the new leader.
He will continue to view agriculture as a key part of the nation and its economy.
If that is true, even farmers who have given up on the Tories should rejoice.
Agriculture needs every voice it can find in today’s urban-dominated political debate.
