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How can agriculture make its voice heard in an urban-dominated Parliament?

Saturday, October 3, 2015

The 42nd Parliament will have 30 new seats and few will include rural representation. That will make an articulate, focused agriculture sector lobby more important than ever

by BARRY WILSON

When newly elected and re-elected MPs gather for the first time on Parliament Hill to launch the 42nd Parliament, likely early in the new year, rural and agricultural Canada will have its weakest parliamentary voice in Canadian history.

This is not a reflection on the quality or qualifications of the rural or rural-influenced MPs about to be elected. It is a reflection on their quantity.

The new Parliament, with 338 seats, will be the largest in Canadian history, bolstered by 30 new seats added to reflect Canada's growing urban and suburban population. Few of those seats will have a rural echo.

In addition, electoral boundary redrawing divides Saskatchewan into six urban seats and eight rural or rural-influenced seats. In the last Parliament, all Saskatchewan urban seats had a strong swath of rural territory and voters that tempered the urban agenda. That means 36 fewer rural-influenced seats in the next Parliament.

Since Canada is one of the world's most urban countries, Parliament increasingly has had an urban slant since the 1890s that escalated after the rural exodus to the cities in the 1930s. But the 42nd Parliament's addition of 36 urban/suburban seats is the most dramatic development in the parliamentary rural-urban split. And it leads to a long-debated issue: with diminishing relative numbers, how can rural and agricultural issues still claim the spotlight in parliamentary affairs and debates?

Of course, having House of Commons and Senate committees dedicated to rural and agricultural issues provides one reliable forum. And the power of effective and persistent farm lobbying on Parliament Hill is a good way to educate and pressure both urban and rural MPs about agricultural concerns. But a canvas of a number of rural-connected MPs from the last or previous Parliaments offered no easy solution.

Former agriculture minister and rural affairs minister Andy Mitchell argues that the time has come for the often-debated need for a rural affairs minister in cabinet. "If I was providing unsolicited advice to whomever is in government, I think designating a separate person as the rural point person, working horizontally and providing a rural perspective across government, is essential and he or she has to be at cabinet."

Current federal agriculture minister Gerry Ritz, the designated rural representative in cabinet, argues that a separate ministry is not required. He says he is the first agriculture minister to sit on the key cabinet Priorities and Planning committee, giving him influence over broad government policy.

"I can assure voters out there in Ontario that there's never going to be a lack of rural representation, regardless of how many MPs are involved, as long as you have a prime minister who recognizes the value of the rural economy," he says.

For London-area candidate Bev Shipley, a three-term MP and chair of the agriculture committee in the last Parliament, the key issue is not the number of rural MPs but the profile of rural issues in the debate. That involves vocal rural MPs but also active farm sector lobbyists with a story to tell.

"We need to make sure we are marketing ourselves and that we do like other industries do," he says. "I don't know that we have done a good job of marketing ourselves. There is a great wedge now between rural and urban, and that is unfortunate."

The underlying message is that an articulate, focused agriculture sector lobby will be more important than ever in the new urban-dominated Parliament, to give support to the diminishing impact of rural MPs. BF

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

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