By Preston Manning, President and CEO Manning Centre for Building Democracy
From the land, Canada,
must come the soul of Canada.
A.R.M. Lower, Colony to Nation
The time has come to rediscover and redefine those Canadians who occupy rural Canada and to value and compensate them accordingly.
Canada is the second-largest country by land area in the world, yet over 80 per cent of our total population now lives in cities. This leaves less than 6.3 million of us to occupy rural Canada - that vast portion of our country where many people still retain some direct connection with Canada "the land."
At one time, the great majority of those who settled and occupied rural Canada were farmers. More broadly speaking, rural Canada was also populated by hunters, trappers, foresters, ranchers, fishermen and most of our aboriginal people.
Politically, the farm vote was assiduously courted by politicians of all parties. Agricultural policies (more broadly, natural resources policies) were an important part of every party platform and election campaign.
Those Canadians who occupy rural Canada derive the bulk of their income from one source, the sale of commodities grown or raised on the land - grain, hay, specialty crops, cattle, hogs, trees and the like. To this day, their place in Canadian society has been largely defined by their role as harvesters of the land, but in the 21st century, that can and should change.
As Canada and the world become more environmentally conscious, a vitally important role is emerging for those who occupy rural Canada - that of environmental stewards who are recognized and compensated for their work in protecting and conserving soil, plant life (including forests), watersheds, and wildlife. How to compensate those involved in conserving and providing ecological goods and services and to penalize (perhaps by taxing) those whose practices damage the environment is a policy challenge that urgently needs to be addressed - a challenge made even more onerous by growing concern over the rising price of food in the global marketplace.
As industrial agriculture, characterized by massive capital investment and the extensive use of pesticides and fertilizers, is increasingly challenged, the future looks increasingly bright for persons engaged in environmentally friendly agriculture, including a new generation of organic producers. Public policy will have to be adjusted to recognize their needs and potential as well as those of the growing number of green collar workers who will inhabit rural Canada.
If Canada is serious about becoming a model multicultural society, it is also high time that we recognized and valued more highly the cultural contributions of our oldest cultural groups - those who occupy and make their living from "the land." What are those unique cultural contributions? A high value placed on independence, an appreciation of natural equality (the equality that nature, not man, imposes), and that neighbourliness still found in rural Canada but conspicuously absent in much of urban Canada. This is the non-economic aspect of agriculture, a dimension that has been consistently underappreciated by academics and public policy makers.
In the light of these developments - the need for rural-based environmental stewards as well as agricultural producers, the greening (how ironic) of natural resource production and the need to more explicitly incorporate the values of rural life into Canada's cultural mosaic - is it not a time to rediscover and redefine the role of those Canadians who constitute agrarian Canada and to value and compensate them accordingly?
In the United States, there is a well-defined and growing agrarian movement that has found its voice through people such as Kentucky writer-farmer Wendell Berry. But where is his Canadian equivalent?
In the 1920s and 1930s, organizations such as the Progressive Party of Canada and the United Farmers of Alberta took the values that derive from tilling the soil and applied them, not just to farm policy, but to many other aspects of life. But where are the agrarian organizations and interest groups that are doing this effectively today?
The values of rural Canada are in many respects inherently conservative. It is no accident that a majority of rural seats in provincial legislatures and in Parliament are held by conservative-oriented politicians. But do not such politicians therefore have a special obligation to develop an expanded vision of the values, needs and aspirations of agrarian Canada and to give new voice to that vision in the public square?
Most importantly, is there not inspiration and new hope in all of this for those who live in rural Canada - new hope that there will be an exciting and substantial increase in relevance, value, income and appreciation for all those who occupy, cherish and derive their livelihood directly from Canada the land?
