Farm
By Eric Dowd
Toronto – So which is the most precarious post in the Ontario cabinet?
Few would associate it with peaceful pastoral scenes, rolling fields and lazy rivers – much more likely it would have something to do with the smoky, noisy, stressed-out cities, where tempers flare easier.
But four of the last five ministers of agriculture, food and rural affairs, or some combination of these titles, have been turned out to pasture the moment voters got the opportunity.
New Democrat Elmer Buchanan and Progressive Conservatives Noble Villeneuve, Brian Coburn and Helen Johns all lost their seats in elections and the only survivor was another Tory, Ernie Hardeman.
The casualty rate among agriculture ministers is far higher than for other posts -- they are the kamikaze pilots of government.
It also is some indication of the unhappiness people in rural areas have felt over the past decade and they are now madder than they have ever been.
Their concerns include prices they receive for staple products falling to their lowest in 25 years, while they lack the subsidies major competing countries give.
They have lost hundred of millions of dollars through mad cow disease and compensation from governments has been nowhere enough to pay for it.
Governments are regulating them more to protect the environment and consumers. The Tories brought in strict rules telling farmers how to store and apply manure that are costly.
The Liberal government plans to charge them for the first time for water they draw from rivers, streams and ponds, even on their own land.
The Liberals have designated a huge slab of south-central Ontario as greenbelt on which they will prohibit building.
This is great for ensuring open space for future generations, but many owners counted on selling land when they got older to provide their pensions.
Horse farms that provide riding stables are having difficulty continuing, because they are taxed as businesses rather than farms.
Rural residents are even more starved for doctors than the rest of the province – they have 20 per cent of Ontario’s population, but only 10 per cent of its doctors
Another study shows many women living on farms are stressed and face health and safety hazards because they have to help run them while their husbands take extra jobs to survive.
These hazards include operating heavy farm machinery designed for males, handling pesticides and other dangerous chemicals and washing laundry contaminated by them.
About 1,000 tobacco farmers and their families, with whom not all will sympathize, are fuming because the Liberals are restricting smoking dramatically, but slow to find money to help them switch them to other types of business.
The downturn on farms is being felt throughout rural areas and many stores are having difficulty hanging on.
Liberals are among those raising alarms. Ernie Parsons, an eastern Ontario MPP and no rabble-rouser, said in 58 years he has never seen farmers under more economic or personal stress.
A rift between cities and rural areas is growing and the latter claim the urban-dwellers have too much influence on provincial government decisions.
You can almost see the sweat dripping from the brow of the current Liberal agriculture minister, Steve Peters, as he struggles to persuade cabinet colleagues from places which mainly grow sidewalks that farmers need help.
Peters conceded recently away from the restraints of the legislature he was having difficulty getting compensation for tobacco farmers approved by the cabinet because it is only a small, distant group.
Farmers are holding protest meetings, blocking highways with tractors and starting to descend on the legislature in large numbers.
The new Conservative leader, John Tory, a lifelong resident of downtown Toronto, has been quick to recognize the issue.
He has begun his campaign to obtain a legislature seat in a by-election in a largely rural riding by declaring `I believe in rural Ontario.’
Farmers have been given admiration before, however – what they are really looking for is some money and a lot less interference.
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