The Hill: The profound Liberal disconnect from rural Canada

Monday, December 1, 2008

The Oct. 14 election left Liberals frozen out of rural areas. But despite the Tories' embarrassment of riches, the new cabinet has no one with personal connections to Ontario agriculture

by BARRY WILSON

The rout of the Liberal Party in rural Ontario, which began with the 2004 election, was essentially completed in the Oct. 14 vote.

After the 2006 election, veteran MP Paul Steckle in Huron-Bruce proclaimed himself the last rural Liberal in an agricultural riding still standing west of the Quebec-New Brunswick border.

This autumn, Steckle stepped down after 15 years and his long-time aide, who had been working the riding for two years, was decisively defeated. The last agricultural rural riding was lost.

Others with at least a pretension of rural representation – ridings like Brant and Thunder Bay – also fell, the former to the Conservatives and the latter to the NDP.

In fact, while the Conservatives were cleaning up in ridings south of the Canadian Shield, the NDP was picking off rural northern seats long held by the Liberals. To a lesser extent, the Conservatives also started to pick away at Liberal rural seats in Maritime provinces.

The Liberal disconnect from rural Canada and agriculture has become so profound that, unless the party stacks the House of Commons agriculture committee with rural Atlantic MPs, it will have to turn to at least one urban MP, if not two, to fill the three or four places it will be assigned on the committee in the new Parliament.

Of Liberals on the committee in the last Parliament, only Prince Edward Island MP Wayne Easter survived election night and then by just 900 votes. Steckle was on the committee as vice-chair and former chair.

Lloyd St. Amand from Brant, who boasted some tobacco farmers and the president of Ontario Pork among his largely urban constituents, was on the committee and was defeated. So was Ken Boschoff from Thunder Bay, former chair of the Liberal rural caucus and a committee member.

Even Easter, a former National Farmers Union president who has been an energetic advocate for farm issues since 1993, sounded discouraged after the election. He noted his battle over the years to keep the increasingly urban Liberal caucus focused at least some of the time on the rural issues he champions, from supply management and the Canadian Wheat Board to improved safety nets.

Yet there is no political payback for the party when farmers vote overwhelmingly Conservative. "And in terms of politics, there certainly is no payback across the country, no political payback," he said shortly after the election that left him wondering if he even wanted to be agriculture critic in the new Parliament. "We defend farmers, I convince my caucus to support farmer rights and yet there is no vote payback for us."

Meanwhile, Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper faced a problem in building a Cabinet Oct. 30 that he normally faces in Western Canada – an embarrassment of rural Ontario MP riches and how to recognize it in cabinet.

Overwhelmingly, Ontario seats at the cabinet table went to urban MPs, but there are several prominent rural MPs, including two who defeated Liberal agriculture ministers in previous elections.

Diane Finley from Haldimand-Norfolk defeated Bob Speller in 2004 and she returns as human resources and skills development minister. Parry Sound-Muskoka second-term MP Tony Clement, who defeated agriculture minister Andy Mitchell in 2006 but returned this timed with a strong victory, moves from health to industry.

But the Cabinet does not include anyone with any personal connection to the Ontario agriculture industry that helped give Harper a stronger minority. BF

Barry Wilson is a member of the Parliamentary Press Gallery specializing in agriculture.