From this weeks agriweek.
The Liberal caucus reportedly has a committee charged with figuring out how to attract the rural vote in the next election, and on that committee
reportedly are Liberal agriculture critic Easter and the only Liberal member between Winnipeg and Vancouver, Ralph Goodale. The reason the Liberal party has insignificant support in rural ridings all across the country excepting Quebec can be put at the feet of this pair.
Agriculture and rural affairs, however, do not rate a full-blast Liberal ‘commission’ such as those the party has for women, youth, natives and the old folks.
Unless something is dramatically reformed within this party, the new rural policy expected in a few months will continue the same old Liberal
strategy: trying to convince farm and other rural voters that their deeply- and long-held beliefs are completely wrong.
A start was made at the party convention in Vancouver early this month. A “vision for rural Canada” resolution had as its central point promoting organic agriculture. Another resolution promised that farmers would not have to sell their products at below the cost of production and that they would have access to farm inputs at “reasonable cost.” Nothing new or original there, nothing not heard before and nothing suggestive of an open mind or a new leaf.
It has not occurred and probably will not occur to anyone in this haphazard party that if the Conservatives keep walking off with the rural vote, it might be productive to adopt or emulate Conservative policies instead of fanatically opposing and attacking them.
In ages past Liberal representation in rural areas was quite competitive. Rural support started to lose altitude in the Trudeauiste period, spiralled
lower under the Chretienistes and crashed during the comic-book Dion interlude. The Liberal party is more than ever the limousine Liberal party of elitist leftists like its new leader.
Nothing stops the Liberal party from gaining political support in farm and rural ridings except its core beliefs-of-the-week. Rural people believe in
self-reliance and responsibility while the Liberal party believes in the dependence of the citizen on the government. Rural people are entrepreneurial whereas the Liberal party is dedicated to central planning. Rural people badly want less government and the Liberal party intends to give them more.
The Liberal caucus reportedly has a committee charged with figuring out how to attract the rural vote in the next election, and on that committee
reportedly are Liberal agriculture critic Easter and the only Liberal member between Winnipeg and Vancouver, Ralph Goodale. The reason the Liberal party has insignificant support in rural ridings all across the country excepting Quebec can be put at the feet of this pair.
Agriculture and rural affairs, however, do not rate a full-blast Liberal ‘commission’ such as those the party has for women, youth, natives and the old folks.
Unless something is dramatically reformed within this party, the new rural policy expected in a few months will continue the same old Liberal
strategy: trying to convince farm and other rural voters that their deeply- and long-held beliefs are completely wrong.
A start was made at the party convention in Vancouver early this month. A “vision for rural Canada” resolution had as its central point promoting organic agriculture. Another resolution promised that farmers would not have to sell their products at below the cost of production and that they would have access to farm inputs at “reasonable cost.” Nothing new or original there, nothing not heard before and nothing suggestive of an open mind or a new leaf.
It has not occurred and probably will not occur to anyone in this haphazard party that if the Conservatives keep walking off with the rural vote, it might be productive to adopt or emulate Conservative policies instead of fanatically opposing and attacking them.
In ages past Liberal representation in rural areas was quite competitive. Rural support started to lose altitude in the Trudeauiste period, spiralled
lower under the Chretienistes and crashed during the comic-book Dion interlude. The Liberal party is more than ever the limousine Liberal party of elitist leftists like its new leader.
Nothing stops the Liberal party from gaining political support in farm and rural ridings except its core beliefs-of-the-week. Rural people believe in
self-reliance and responsibility while the Liberal party believes in the dependence of the citizen on the government. Rural people are entrepreneurial whereas the Liberal party is dedicated to central planning. Rural people badly want less government and the Liberal party intends to give them more.
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