DECK the halls with campaign posters, fa-la-la-la-la, la-la-la-la.
Yes, a winter election is under way that will last through the holiday season. And yes, we’ve heard quite enough about the timing.
Pollsters hastened to inform the Canadian electorate that the majority of them didn’t want a winter election. But since when have the wishes of the electorate mattered to election timing? Governing parties call elections when it best suits them. Whenever that occurs, the people, if polled, would say the same thing: they don’t want an election.
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One can speculate that it’s the mainstream media and politicians themselves who were most loath to campaign in a Canadian winter. The rest of us will behave as we do during any federal election. We’ll gauge the platforms, watch the news, absorb or ignore campaign antics according to our whim, and cast a ballot on the appointed day.
Of course, in the case of this particular election, the timing was forced upon the minority government Liberals for reasons that have been exhaustively reported. The thing for the electorate to do now is embrace it as an opportunity to ensure that a key economic element in our lives – agriculture – is part of the political debate.
In coming weeks we will doubtless learn about the agricultural platforms of the various parties. In broad strokes, we can expect the Conservatives to favour the open market as the salvation of the agricultural economy. We can expect the New Democrats to suggest more supply management and organic development as the answer to similar woes. We can expect the Liberals to waffle somewhere in the mushy middle ground.
Such assumptions will not be sufficient to inform prairie farmers about candidates’ stands on the issues. This election is the ideal opportunity to unleash that little (or big) Grinch that hides within all of us, and relentlessly question candidates so they reach beyond dogma with their answers.
Certainly we want to know their views on health care, taxes, social programs, the environment, the economy, and yes, even national unity.
But we must also ask them their plans for rural revitalization, supply management, the Canadian Wheat Board and the agricultural policy framework.
We want to know how candidates think farmers can get a larger share of the food dollar, how input costs could or should be controlled and whether or how commodity prices could be made to improve. We must ask about agricultural trade issues, ad-hoc farm aid and agricultural research funding.
Consider it the farm version of Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire.
A winter, holiday season election? Let’s use it to the best advantage.
With apologies to Bing Crosby, we can all begin dreaming of a white (and Tory blue and Liberal red and NDP orange) Christmas.
