by BARRY WILSON

OTTAWA — In a fiery speech to farm leaders attending the Canadian Federation of Agriculture annual meeting Feb. 24, New Democratic Party leader Thomas Mulcair promised the NDP will be vigorous advocates for the industry in the new Parliament.

Despite the party’s diminished parliamentary presence after losing more than 50 seats in the October election and falling from Official Opposition to third party status, the Montreal lawyer and grandson of a Quebec dairy farmer promised to hold the governing Liberals accountable for how they treat the industry.

He promised his MPs will:

Push the government to make certain that a fair share of the promised billions of dollars in infrastructure spending make their way into rural communities through stronger broadband service, improved transportation and other rural priorities;

Advocate for increased funding for business risk management programs that saw funding cuts when the current Agricultural Policy Framework took effect in 2013.

Defend supply management in the face of trade deals negotiated under the Conservatives and not repudiated by the Liberals that would weaken some system protections against imports;

Advocate for compensation for supply-managed farmers if the trade deals are implemented. During the election campaign, the Conservatives promised $4.3 billion in compensation over the next decade or more but the Liberal government has yet to indicate if it would honour the promise;

Support Prairie farmers who are calling for a re-creation of the Canadian Wheat Board monopoly dismantled by the Conservative government.

Mulcair called his NDP caucus the “progressive” opposition party in the House.

“I won’t abandon my promise to stand four-square behind supply management,” he said.

While free trade advocates and their political defenders criticize the protectionist system as a drag on the Canadian economy “this is just economic theory. It doesn’t hold water.”

Many CFA members, who earlier had sat through a wooden and tightly-scripted performance by new agriculture minister Lawrence MacAulay, praised the NDP leader for his vigorous promises.

However, Mulcair did find himself in trouble when he bemoaned the loss of “30,000 small- and medium-sized farmers during the past decade” while the presence of corporate farms grew in the industry.

Norm Hall, president of the Agricultural Producers Association of Saskatchewan, called out the politician on the issue.

Hall told Mulcair he took exception to the NDP leader’s characterization of the sector as increasingly corporate at the expense of family farms. He argued it reduced consumer confidence in the industry and unfairly diminished the image of producers.

Hall asked the delegates how many had incorporated their operation. Most raised their hands.

And how many of those operations were family farms? Most raised their hands.

“Corporate farms are family farms,” the Prairie farm leader said. Most farmers incorporate for tax reasons.

Mulcair quickly backtracked. He said he understood the advantages of incorporation for tax purposes and did not intend to tar farmers with the party’s anti-corporate brush.

“I take your point,” he said. “I did not explain myself well.”

Mulcair also appeared to promise that an NDP government would support re-establishing the CWB monopoly, even though World Trade Organization rules forbid the creation of new trading monopolies.

Canada would have to renounce its long-standing WTO membership to accomplish the promise.

“We would return collective bargaining to farmers,” the NDP leader promised, arguing that the end of the monopoly is costing Prairie grain farmers “billions of dollars each year” and farmers “unanimously” have called for a return to the monopoly.

He was referring to a recent meeting of approximately 50 farmers in Swan River, Man., organized by the Canadian Wheat Board Alliance, that voted unanimously to return to the monopoly.

The assets of the former CWB have been sold to a company controlled by American agrifood multinational corporation Bunge and a Saudi Arabian company.

Tory agriculture critic Chris Warkentin, MP Grande Prairie-Mackenzie, addressed meeting goers earlier in the day. BF