Photo : Georges Alexandar
The Liberal Express is back in Ontari-ari-ari-o this week. To mark the occasion, I have composed a haiku:
Among fields and farms
Southwestern Ontario
Do I smell pancakes?
We started the day with breakfast in Egmondville. Michael Ignatieff and Charlie Bagnato, our Liberal candidate in Huron—Bruce, talked with people waiting for delicious, delicious pancakes. I stood back, smelled the grease, and forced myself to imagine being on a treadmill.
Later, as he spoke to the crowd, Michael Ignatieff talked about childhood summers on his Uncle Dima’s dairy farm, in Quebec’s Eastern Townships. As he’s done since he entered politics, he discussed the divide between rural and urban Canada, and the need for federal leadership that brings the country together. Part of that, he said, is “putting more Canadian food on Canadian plates,” with Canada’s first-ever National Food Policy.
Chuc (pronounced “Chuck”) Cauchi, a farm consultant from St. Mary’s, agreed. He met the Liberal Express at our second stop of the day, in downtown Stratford.
“It’s a very good policy,” he told me. “The local focus is a really big issue. As a society, we’ve really just scratched the surface on convincing food distributors and the consumer to focus locally when they’re buying.”
But the farmers Chuc Cauchi works with need more than just “buy local.” To compete in the world, Canadian farmers need to be connected to the world—with broadband internet and cell-phone coverage.
“For research, to develop an understanding of what’s happening around the world, and for education programs, you need a high-speed connection,” Chuc said. “Otherwise, pages won’t load, or they’ll take so long to download that you turn people off from using the internet.”
(Rural broadband coverage? There’s a Liberal plan for that.)
We were in the right place to be talking about rural Canada’s digital future. In Stratford, Michael Ignatieff spoke in front of the Stratford Institute, a satellite of the University of Waterloo. Ian Wilson, the Institute’s Executive Director, was in the crowd.
“We have a vision of Canada as a digital nation by 2017, our 150th birthday,” he said. “[Michael Ignatieff] brings attention to what we’re trying to do, in terms of developing Canada’s digital future.”
Standing beside Ian Wilson was John English, the former Liberal MP for Kitchener and, more recently, the biographer of Pierre Elliott Trudeau.
“What I was impressed by was Michael’s emphasis on the knowledge economy, and the importance of knowledge itself,” he said.
It reminded me of something Chuc Cauchi had said earlier, when I asked him why he was planning to vote Liberal.
“I don’t like Harper’s policies,” he said. “He doesn’t choose to consult, and when he does consult, he doesn’t listen to the experts. The census issue is just the most recent example.”
Michael Ignatieff spent the day listening—in Egmondville, in Stratford, at a townhall in Brantford, and on a farm in Hagersville. Tomorrow, we’re in Guelph, Cambridge, and Kitchener.
We’ve got promises to keep, and miles to go before I get anywhere near a treadmill.
- A.G.
Adam Goldenberg, Michael Ignatieff’s speechwriter, will be blogging from the Liberal Express (almost) all summer. For up-to-the-minute reports from the bus, follow him on Twitter. Email him at adam@email.liberal.ca.
