Even though several federal elections have revealed the split between the Conservatives’ and the Liberals’ regional appeals, the distinctions separating urban and rural Canada are becoming blurred. In rural areas, voters opted for the Conservatives while in cities the Liberals hung on to their seats. Nevertheless, the city and country divide nowadays is more obscure.
In the future, the two principal political parties must adjust to that new reality so that the Liberals become aware of rural Canada’s views and the Tories adjust to new urbanites.
Canada used to depend on the so-called "foundation industries," agriculture, manufacturing, and mining. Manufacturing is suffering here because of the high Canadian dollar and the worldwide trend to service industries.
Mining is in the midst of a revival with strong metal prices bolstering that sector. Agriculture has been battered by rising costs, and, up until recently, low farm gate prices. How do we adjust to those new situations?
Our foreign trade policy makers must insist on equal access for our exporters. We impose only minimal duties on imports of cars while nations such as China and Japan curtail their auto imports by steep tariffs and stiff regulations. Too, the manufacturing industries must strive to improve productivity by offering on-the-job training, with tax incentives to that end from the federal and provincial governments, thereby attracting displaced agricultural workers,
Currently, the mining industries are thriving because of firm metal prices. That may be a cyclical phenomenon. To ensure against a return to lower metal prices, Canada must do more processing here. Rather than shipping say aluminum abroad, letting others do the fabricating, our companies must start to do more of that here. Again, governments should offer incentives to encourage that trend. More miners so engaged then would be like city folk.
Despite soaring grain prices farmers continue to have trouble earning a reasonable living as their costs have climbed dramatically. Thus, many are abandoning farming.
Population in outer-outer suburbs is growing the quickest of any places. Those new "exurbians" are playing at being farmers, but in truth they are service workers with an office and a computer at hand.
A few farmers have engaged in "boutique farming," small operations that are a kind of hobby. A more level-headed approach is greater emphasis on growing a wide range of humdrum commodities for local or regional, rather than national markets, and more concentration of growing organic fruits and vegetables. Too, they should take over some of the processing, distribution and selling of what they produce, then resembling urbanites.
Shrewd political observers perhaps ought to notice how the longer-term changes in the, urban-countryside picture will affect future voter patterns. Clearly the gulf separating rural and urban communities has diminished, erasing many of the differences.
