A credible performance by Justin Trudeau, but a hill still to climb
Friday, April 4, 2014
The Liberal leader said all the right things to the Canadian Federation of Agriculture, but he has a history of suspicion amongst the farm community still to overcome
by BARRY WILSON
In late February, Justin Trudeau became the latest Liberal leader to use the Canadian Federation of Agriculture (CFA) as a forum to let farmers know he cares.
The rookie leader, to the manor born with a millionaire prime minister father and downtown Montreal to the core, did a credible job hitting the right notes for the CFA leaders – the need for a national food strategy, for an aggressive open trade policy that also preserves supply management and for more government investment in agricultural research. He bashed the railways and called for a tougher government stance to make sure grain gets moved to markets.
"I deeply respect the role farmers play in our economy," Trudeau told the CFA annual meeting. "Farmers in Canada quite literally shape the landscape we live in."
It was a credible performance by a leader doing well in the polls, appearing poised to lift the historic Liberal party from its nadir of 2011 when, for the first time in history, it fell to third place in the federal election.
CFA delegates, as befit farmers, were polite and applauded, but showed little real enthusiasm.
For Liberals, dreaming of a return to power next year under the charismatic and seemingly popular young leader with the famous name, the farm audience is one of the toughest crowds.
Despite the billions of dollars Liberal governments have thrown at farm income problems over the years, rural ridings where farmers and farm issues play a key role are overwhelmingly Conservative.
Prairie farmers still resurrect an alleged comment from Justin's father asking "why should I sell your wheat?" to stigmatize the Liberals as indifferent to farmers. The fact that Pierre Trudeau did not actually say that during a 1969 Winnipeg rally does not undermine the power of the myth.
Give Justin Trudeau credit for spending part of a busy parliamentary morning talking to an audience that will be a tough sell for his "sunny ways" campaign to win the country.
He is far from the first recent Liberal leader or aspirant to try to play the 'I love farmers' card.
In mid-2003, then-finance minister and soon to be prime minister Paul Martin wrote a letter to CFA president Bob Friesen (later a Liberal candidate) promising to listen to farmers and to act.
"A modern agriculture policy for the 21st century must have the success and well-being of farmers at the centre of it," he wrote, while outlining a menu of farmer-friendly policies. "Such policy development is not something to be done 'to' or 'for' farmers but 'with' and 'by' them . . . My objective is the transformation of Canada's rural economy onto a stronger foundation."
Less than a year later, farmers answered with overwhelming rejection on the Prairies and dwindling support in Ontario and Quebec.
Two Liberal leaders later, Michael Ignatieff worked hard to understand agricultural politics and spoke eloquently about the need to narrow the rural-urban divide. In 2011, he led the party to its worst showing in history with rural success only in a few Atlantic Canada pockets.
In a 2013 memoir, he wrote ruefully about the difference between reading briefing notes about, say, the rural-urban divide and understanding it, feeling it. Political knowledge, he wrote, is "knowing an issue in your guts, not just in your head."
It is a hill Trudeau will have to climb. BF
Barry Wilson is a member of the parliamentary press gallery specializing in agriculture.