The Rural Voice, 2000-11, Page 20TIME TO MAKE NOISE?
Veterans of past battles say it's time for farmers to stop being polite
and make politicians pay attention to their problems
By Keith Roulston
There's an old saying that if you
want to get a mule to do
something, first you have to
get its attention by hitting it over the
head. That's the kind of action some
farm leaders of the past are
suggesting is needed to get the
attention of Canada's governments to
the plight of farmers who must
simultaneously battle low world '
prices caused by a trade war between
the U.S. and the European Economic
Community and poor crops resulting
from a cool, wet summer. •
"What are we prepared to do'if we
don't get resolution to our
problems?" asked Gordon Hill while
debating a resolution at the annual
meeting of the Huron County
Federation of Agriculture calling for
more government assistance. The
president of the Ontario Federation of
Agriculture during the tumultuous
late -1960s -early -1970s period when
the OFA switched to individual
membership, Hill warned talking
only goes so far. "Are we going to
just sit around on our hands?"
Later, speaking from his home in
Varna, in southern Huron County,
16 THE RURAL VOICE
r
Hill said farmers are handicapped by
their desire to be polite. "Back in the
early '70s we had two mottos," he
recalls. "We'd like to resolve our
problems by negotiation," was one.
The other was: "We want to be as
reasonable as possible, but as militant
as necessary."
Other leaders of past battles also
felt it's time farmers' patience ran
out.
"Unless there's a way of actually
pressuring them they'll listen to you
and that's likely the end of it," said
Mason.Bailey who as president of the
Huron County Federation of
Agriculture was, with Hill, in the
middle of the fight to get education
taxes off the property tax base back
in the early 1970s.
And Allen Wilford, who led the
Farm Gate defence protests against
farm foreclosures in the high -interest
1980s says "Direct action is the only
thing that has ever worked," in
getting politicians to act.
The man who is in the position of
trying to win a better deal for Ontario
farmers is Jack Wilkinson, president
of the OFA. Speaking at the annual
meeting of the Perth County
Federation of Agriculture, October
19, Wilkinson expressed extreme
disappointment that the federal
government's "mini -budget" of the
day before had included nothing for
farmers.
"It seemed like the perfect
opportunity after months and months
of lobbying the federal government
and knowing full well that a lot of
rural MPs had worked very hard on
behalf of this issue, that they did not
see fit to raise the priority of
Canadian agriculture — to show
some recognition of the serious
income and weather situation that
exists in this province and announce
some movement as far as putting
money on the table."
Jn an interview later, Wilkinson
said there may still be some farm
aid announcement as part of an
election campaign but he'd have
preferred it to be in place before an
election call.
But Wilkinson sees the current
election campaign as an opportunity
to bring farmers' problems to the
forefront.