Fresh off of the U.S. election last week, our attention now turns to the possibility of a Canadian election and what that potential outcome would mean for Canadian agriculture.
According to the latest Abacus Data poll, the Conservatives hold a 19-point lead over the governing Liberals. No matter when an election happens in Canada between now and the fall of 2025, a change in government colour is all but guaranteed.
Last month, in the Canada Farmer Sentiment Index study, RealAgristudies asked 471 Canadian farmers what impact a Conservative party victory in the next election would have on Canadian agriculture. Sixty-eight percent of Canadian farmers believe the change would be positive, six percent say it would be negative, and twenty-six percent say it would make no difference.
RealAgristudies asked respondents to provide reasoning for their sentiment in the open-ended section of the survey. We summed up the responses in the following ways:
- Economic policies:
- Inflation and tax reduction: Comments mention desires for inflation reduction, eliminating taxes, such as the carbon tax, and reducing overall taxation.
- Trade Policies: Several comments express a preference for policies that support trade, particularly in agriculture
- Agricultural policies
- Support for Canadian farmers: Comments reflect support for policies that benefit Canadian farmers and criticism of policies perceived as harmful, such as tariffs on imported fertilizers from Russia and Belarus.
- Carbon tax criticisms: Many comments call for removing the carbon tax, viewing it as detrimental to farming and agriculture.
- Environmental policies:
- Sustainability programs and critiques: Some comments criticize green policies, describing them as harmful when applied without flexibility.
When we look at the demographics of the respondents relative to how they view a change in government, we found that age did not really impact the result that much, but there were slightly fewer of the 65 years and over saying it would be a positive change at sixty four percent. Additionally, under 35 year olds and over 65 year olds said it would be a negative change at nine and eleven percent respectively.
Smaller farmers by revenue see a change to a conservative government as being negative between ten to thirteen percent depending on the category. Once farms get over half a million in revenue, seeing a government change as a stronger positive change than smaller farms. This difference between how positive larger and smaller farms feel about a change is twenty points.
When we look at geography and compare Eastern Canada and Western Canada, seventy-four percent of the West see a change being positive while only fifty-six percent of the East do. Twelve percent of the eastern farmers see it as having a negative impact and only 3% in the east feel the same way.
Some of the Eastern Canadian pushback in saying that it would be a negative change could be as a result of the supply management industry. Sixty-four percent of non-SM farmers see the change as positive, while 40 per cent of supply-managed farmers see it as a positive change.
When we compare these two segments, what stands out is the amount of supply-managed farmers who see a change as making no difference.
With fifty percent of supply-managed farmers seeing a political change in Canada as making no difference on top of the forty percent that view a change as positive, there is clearly confidence in a conservative government supporting supply management.
Before the U.S. election, RealAgriculture posted some data on which of the candidates would be better for Canadian agriculture. Now that we have had a chance above to look at the potential impacts of a Canadian government change, let’s combine these two sets of questions and see how they interact.
If you think a Conservative government in Canada would be a positive change, how you viewed the impact of the U.S. political candidates was very evenly spread out among all four options. Of this group, twenty-three percent thought Donald Trump would be good for Canadian agriculture and twenty-nine percent thought Kamala Harris would be good for Canadian agriculture.
The same distribution does not show up when we look at the farmers who answered a negative change to a Conservative government. Of the people who think a conservative government would be a negative change for Canadian agriculture, eighty-six percent believed VP Kamala Harris was best for Canadian agriculture and none said Donald Trump.
If you have any additional questions or comments on this data, please send me an email [email protected]. A big thank you to our insights panel for participating in this months study as this provides a clearer picture of how Canadian farmers view political change in Canada and the U.S..
