The Hollowing Out of Rural Canada

I have a message for rural Canadians. I get it. I’m on your side. And I’m ready to fight for your future.

Let’s not beat around the bush, rural communities here across this country are under threat. They need someone to stand up for their rights and interests.

Look at the lack of investment in basic infrastructure: roads, water, hospitals and health care, schools and libraries, the list goes on.

Look at the lack of jobs, forcing young people to go to the cities. The family farm and the small ranches are disappearing.

It is the hollowing out of rural Canada.

Traditional family farmers, organic farmers and smaller ranchers can’t compete for a livelihood, because the playing field isn’t level. You’re fighting with one arm tied behind your back.

This isn’t news to you of course. You’ve known this has been going on for quite a while.

For years, Liberal governments took rural Canada for granted. They took your votes but forgot about the voters when it came time to govern. Liberals off-loaded responsibility from the federal government to the province, and then the provinces did the same to the municipalities and that left nothing for you.

But the Harper Conservatives haven’t done any better. They pretended like they were listening. They paid lip service to rural concerns and they made a lot of noise about a few hot button social issues in order to help them fundraise as a party, but none of that is helping to put food on your table or to put the food you raise on kitchen tables across Canada.

Basically, they sold people a phony bill of goods.

The Harper Conservatives run around telling Canadians that government is the problem – “We’ll get the government off your backs and you’ll be fine”.

Well, how’s it going?

It’s misdirection, like a magician’s trick. They want people to blame the government for getting in the way when people need the government to help level the playing

field.

The truth is that Harper is helping out one group of farmers; it just isn’t the family farmer or the organic farmer, or any of the small farmers and ranchers across the country.

Harper – just like the Liberals before him – is writing the regulations, putting in the incentives and tax breaks, and maintaining the infrastructure that serves giant agribusiness and not you.

They are giving their help to Viterra and Cargill and they’re choking off the Wheat Board to make it easier for the big guys to buy up what they haven’t taken already.

And don’t think they’ll stop there. They’re coming after dairy and egg boards too. They won’t stop until all that’s left are giant agribusiness and hobby farms.

And, by the way, they’ll keep helping the oil and gas companies pollute ranch land as well, just to make it a little tougher.

New Democrats historically understood this. Back when we were the CCF, the farmers’ party, people knew we cared and they supported us because we supported them.

We didn’t stop caring, but we have to admit we’ve been distracted by other issues – by other people who maybe seemed like they were in greater need at the time – and we didn’t make rural Canada the focus it should have been. We have to take our share of responsibility for letting this happen.

It’s not just farmers though. Rural communities that rely on natural resource development aren’t faring any better. In fact, it may be worse.

The mines went in with big promises, but communities did not see those promises fulfilled. Companies have taken all the government incentive money, but they moved the refining jobs somewhere else. Without these value-added jobs and with lasting environmental damage, rural communities absorb all the risk with little of the reward.

Similar issues happened with the mismanagement of forests and failed trade policies. The trees come down, but mill production went offshore. We ship raw logs overseas and buy back furniture.

The time when Canadians were satisfied as drawers of water and hewers of wood has ended. Longer-lasting good-paying jobs are available, if only government

stopped supporting short-term profits for the multinationals over your future.

It’s well past time for action on this. The crisis is urgent across the country.

We need many solutions. One-size does not fit all.

Small farms need flexibility in order to compete. Health regulations built for factory farms don’t work for small organic producers. We need to be on your side.

Resource developers have to put something back into the communities, help diversify the economy so there is work when the resource dries up or falls in price. And we need to insist on value-added jobs staying here. Those well-paying jobs can benefit people where the resources are extracted.

Government needs to help by supporting the creation of local, sustainable jobs by supporting small entrepreneurs, the creative economy and eco-tourism.

And we all need to understand that off-loading punishes rural municipalities with small tax bases and we need to re-balance that fiscal unfairness to provide the services and infrastructure you need.

I want to bring our party back to its roots in rural Canada. I want Canadians in small towns, villages and remote communities across the country to know that there are people in Ottawa who see what is going on, who know how urgent it is and who are willing to line up on your side and fight for you.

Unlike Stephen Harper, I’m not going to tell you that government is the problem. I understand that you are best placed to know what you need to prosper and I know that government can and should be part of that solution, helping you move forward.

I am offering to help you fight that battle, the real battle, for your own sake and for the sake of our country’s future.