Opinion
The 2015 federal election is being described as a “change” election. As with the Alberta election earlier this year, the electorate wanted change, and that’s what they’re getting.
However, many rural areas where local economies rely on agriculture did not vote Liberal, and so there was a fair amount of groaning and complaining among farm circles on social media, in the coffee shop and elsewhere following Trudeau 2.0’s victory on Monday night. But will all that much change under a Liberal government?
In the conversation below, RealAg’s Shaun Haney and Kelvin Heppner chat about the result and what it means for Canadian agriculture, whether the big change in Ottawa will have a noticeable impact on farmers’ bottom lines and more:
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I think you ignored the reality of the vote in farm country. Quebec, NB, NS and PEI farm country went Liberal and parts of Eastern Ontario did as well. Essex went NDP. Its true, no drama in Western Canadian farm country. However, a huge issue in Eastern Canada was the TPP and its effect on supply management. Its also true that the Fed Cons rejected all of Ontario’s recommendation for federal participation in our risk management plan.
I would suspect that it is much harder to separate the rural and urban votes in eastern Canada where there is a much larger non-farming rural population than in the west.