Who are you voting for and why?

[schelled]

Another election in Canada!! I think that we should get a discussion going in here on the election... Who has the best Ag policy? Who will do the most to help farmers? Why?

[danm]

I live in SW manitoba & was apart of the 2million acres that was not sown.So how ag policies affect you in a time of need should be addressed. Well we got AIDA,still a large majority have not got there payment,we had MR Vancleif fly over & tell us get out of the bussiness.(good policy) At the same time there was disaster going on in Canada the Prime Minister anounces million to foreign aid (whats that?) We were told at several meetings if the west had voted more Liberals we would have got more money.Is this not like voting for a sepertist party? In other words if you have a winning party in your riding you will get money. Take look at the red river flood photo opts & Mr Axworthy just happens to be from that area,Quebec ice storm we all know how much we herd about that & look at all those liberal seats staying warm. So to vote for the Liberals might be a vote for a party that says they are a NATIONAL party but are in fact just pitting Candians against each other. I'll have to admit the Alliance has alot of educating to do for the public but I am willing to learn from any of the canidates until election day. I must say though everybody that went through the disasters I am sure glad the Canadian Gov't was there for them I just wish it was a level playing feild & should get back to it. Truly Undecided

[myboyjeff]

Unfortunately, the politicians and the voting public in general haven't realized that farmers are vital to this country. I was recently asked by an urban co-worker, 'what is land used for?' Until that I moment I hadn't really fully understood just how removed some of the population is from rural Canada. (I mean the farming rural Canada not acreage dwellers) I think our politicians have become too metropolitian and just don't think about what Canada will be like when only corporations can afford to farm our soil. Our best chance in Western Canada is likely the Alliance Party, but I believe that Stockwell Day is a far inferior leader to Preston Manning. Stockwell Day doesn't understand rural Canada, and will soon be totally Easternized. I too will be listening to what the politicians have to say, but I admit I feel pessimistic.

[cakadu]

I am in agreement with the others who have posted on this topic. Have the Alliance even mentioned anything about ag policy? Granted, I don't watch all of the news or get to read the papers all the time, but I have yet to hear them mention rural Canada. So far, what I have seen from Day has not impressed me at all. Maybe we will see an ad with him on a tractor? I, too, will be listening to what the candidates have to say. The question raised with myboyjeff about what is done on the land is a bit scary and underscores just how far removed from the land and producer concerns our urban cousins are. People in Alberta hear about there being another $233 million given in aid, but do they have any idea how little of it reaches the producers or what they have to go through in order to get it? I am all for value-adding and working together in value chains etc. etc., but we have to recognize how vital the producer is in any and all of those equations. If nobody is growing it, it can't be value-added. I am afraid that what it is going to take is people getting hit where it counts most - in their pocket books. Hopefully it won't be too late. Who is going to come up with the best ag policy is anybody's guess. Linda

[jwright]

The reason that Alliance hasn't mentioned much about their ag policy is because a significant number of people that will be voting for them wouldn't like their ag policy if they really understood it. If you like the way that agriculture has been going lately, vote Alliance, because it is basically their policies that have got us where we are at. All of the farm groups who have supported the 'reforms' of the past couple of decades have lined up behind Alliance. Alliance has some major contraditions between their image and what they actually stand for and that will cause them grief if they are elected. Remember Mulrooney? He had the same problem. Claiming to support supply management is a bit of a joke. Does anyone believe that a convention of Alliance delegates would allow them to continue that policy after they were elected?

[cakadu]

I would wholeheartedly agree that there is a disparity between the Alliance image and what they are trying to accomplish. I don't know many 'grassroots' that can afford $25,000 table dinners nor a blast on a jet ski. I think myboyjeff hit the nail on the head when he said that the Alliance will/is trying to Easternize itself. They need the eastern vote, plain and simple. I would just like to hear some of the Alliance ag policy to judge who may/may not change things once elected. Part of it does come down to the fact that those in urban areas just don't understand the part of Canada that produces their food for them. Consumers are driven by 2 or 3 needs/wants/desires - cheap affordable safe food, convenience and some sort of perceived health benefit in the food choices they make. It doesn't really go much beyond that and that is sad. Linda

[dalek]

Undecided. As far as I've seen the PCs are the only party that HAS what I'd call an ag policy but I don't think that's going to help them. BTW lots of acreage here unseeded including in Vanclief's riding which is just down the road and there was nothing more than lip service, there are still hog farmers in his riding who qualified for aid what, 2 years ago now? and haven't gotten a cent. He almost faced a lynch mob at a meeting in his own riding during the summer and former Ontario ag minister Dennis Timbrell is running against him for the PCs. Although the word among Ontario farm orgs from inside sources is that Vanclief had the Liberal caucus including Paul Martin convinced to put more into disaster relief in the pre-election vote-buying spree and Chretien vetoed it. The way I feel now I just may end up voting Family Coalition Party if they run the same candidate they did last time in this riding.

[danm]

I would have to agree with Linda that this is sad but who can change this urban attitude the best,so we can get some support? I like the grassroots ideas of the alliance & they have already used the phone polling so they can get a feel for things extremly fast.If you vote the same old parties you will probably get the same old results. I am still undecided

[cakadu]

I don't disagree, Dan, if you keep doing the same old thing you'll keep getting the same results, but do we have any idea about what any of the other parties ag policies are? Can any of them be trusted to do what they said they would do before the election, after the election? Do they even care about rural Canadians? Most of them spend their time courting the votes in the big urban areas and someone said earlier that Day will be no different. He NEEDS the votes in Ontario, just like any of the other parties. I just want to get past the rhetoric and get a straight, honest answer.

[dfarms11]

Well, here's my two cents. To put things bluntly, I do not like the Liberals. They have done nothing for the west all 8 years they've been in. Another big thing with them is their gun control law that is not going to do didly squat to lower the crime rates. I am from Alberta, I have seen what Day has done here with Klein, and they have done what they said they would do when they were voted in. Everyone says he is just like the Liberals, I don't beleive it. Yes he needs to caiter to the needs of the east because thats the only way to get elected. However, I do believe Day will remember where he is from and help us as much as he can, and definitely as much as anyonelse will. My votes for Alliance

[myboyjeff]

The West still has the same problem: population. We simply don't have enough votes to make it worthwhile for the politicians to put effort into keeping the Western Canadian farmer happy. I have heard Mr. Day say on the news that he won't forget about the Western farmers, but I did not hear specifics. Mr. Day has lived in rural Western Canada, but as I said previously, I think he may be on the road to becoming easternized. I have friends from the rural Alberta town he lived in. Apparently, it is commom knowledge that one evening Mr. Day and three friends from the same local church tried to push the bar over with their bare hands because they said it was full of sinners. When asked how they were going to accomplish this, the reply was they had the power of God. The bar still stands. I would be alot happier if Preston Manning were the Alliance leader, but overall the Alliance may be Alberta's best bet. I agree with an earlier comment that the Liberals have had time to do something for the West and haven't. Why would they change now? When I hear Joe Clark speak I can't get past thinking about Mulroney; the PCs have never done anything for the West anyway. I recently read an article which predicted that, according to current trends, the family farm will be only a memory in 50 years. What will the politicians be saying then? We can't all be urban. I am still undecided.

[shelka]

The Canadian Alliance has my vote. Just think of the Liberal's $3 BILLION Human Resources fiasco, reduction in health transfer payments to the provinces, the promise of no GST in a previous election, the funding of rotting dead rabbits, and much, much more. For agriculture, check out the Canadian Alliance's website, listed here.

[overbye]

Well, I don't know. As some have said, do any of the candidates really care about the prairies? I mean, all the votes are in the urban centres, so they will have to focus on those areas to get the votes. Saskatchewan is to thinly populated, we don't have enough population to makle us important to them. Sadly enough, they don't seem to realize that this is an agricultural country. Sure we have oil and other stuff to deal with, but so much of the land base is in agriculture. The liberals haven't done a whole lot for the farmers, Day is new and I don't know enough about his platform. NDP doesn't seem to be focusing much on agriculture and the P.C.'s, well they don't look so bad. Sask. has had problems with the PC party before with premier Grant Devine. Sure the farmers had it good with him in power and he did lots for us. But he also buried us in billions of dollars of debt. I have no love for the PC's but the alternatives aren't real impressive.

[jwright]

I don't see anything in the Alliance policy that is different than the disastrous policies of Klein and Chretien. Except perhaps disembowelling the CWB, including ignoring the results of the CWB elections. No new ideas. No programs to help farmers change careers. More powers over transportation to the grain companies and the railways. More dying small towns. Cut taxes on the rich so there's no money to help the unlucky. More opportunties for middlemen. User fees for everything. It isn't clear who to vote for, but it's pretty clear who *not* to vote for.

[oilcan]

Just curious, where are the election results for the appointed non-farmer directors at the CWB?