‘Everything that exists in urban Canada originated from rural Canada’: Conservative MP Patzer

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Everything in urban Canada, from food to building materials to energy, has its origins in rural communities, Jeremy Patzer (Swift Current—Grasslands—Kindersley) told the House of Commons earlier this month. He noted that policies such as the industrial carbon tax, the incoming fuel standard, the emissions cap and the Impact Assessment Act are “detrimental policies for rural Canada” that have a “trickle impact” into the rest of Canada.

“Everything that exists in urban Canada originated from rural Canada, first and foremost. Whether it is food, building materials or the energy used to heat and cool homes, it all originated in rural Canada. It is important for people in the House to know and understand that,” he said.

Drawing on his own experience growing up on a farm in southwest Saskatchewan, Patzer highlighted the historical importance of small towns and local economies.

“I grew up on a farm outside of a small town. The prairie economy back in the day was based on a couple of things. The most common thing was the rail line. When we look at where all the different communities across southwest and west central Saskatchewan are, they are generally in relation to either the current national rail line or the many offshoot rail lines,” he said. “Some rail lines are no longer in existence and have been removed, but we can see the communities that used to exist along those rail lines. Some of those communities, unfortunately, have vanished or are vanishing because of the state of the economy.”

Focus on local economy

‘Whether it is food, building materials or the energy used to heat and cool homes, it all originated in rural Canada,’ says CPC MP Jeremy Patzer / SCREENSHOT FROM www.jeremypatzer.com

He noted that 86,000 jobs were lost recently across the country, which affects many small local economies. “In just about every single small town along the rail line, farming was obviously the driver of the local economy, but within the local, siloed economy, there were farmers, a blacksmith, sometimes two or three equipment dealers selling farm implements and a couple of different auto dealers selling cars and trucks,” he said, describing how these sectors created opportunities for residents in rural towns. “They also had schools and hospitals. They had a heavy focus on the local economy, so there were always lots of jobs for folks in these small towns. If we fast-forward, our rural communities have been decimated.”

Meanwhile, Patzer noted that agriculture remains a major driver of the national economy, which makes rural communities important. “In my riding in particular, I have well over 100 communities, and several of them are small in size for sure, but they are just as important as any of the larger communities, like the city of Swift Current, and, when we look nationally, some of the large cities, like Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal. These small towns are extremely important. Why is that? For starters, agriculture represents one in eight jobs in the national economy,” he said. “The canola industry, for example, impacts GDP and the Canadian economy more than the auto industry does,” he said.

Patzer was speaking to an opposition day motion calling on the government to “recognize that deficits drive investment and jobs down and the cost of living up.”

In response, Kody Blois, parliamentary secretary to the prime minister, said that the government is investing in Canadians and driving private sector investments.

Although the motion did not pass, he said Canadians “want a government that is going to walk the line between a reasonable fiscal approach, reining in operational spending, at the same time being forward looking about where the economy has to go, because we are in a difficult period.”

Blois noted that the government is investing in major projects, such as LNG and copper production. “In our neck of the woods in Atlantic Canada, it could be renewable energy that we could drive forward,” he said. “We have cut taxes for 22 million Canadians. We have removed the GST for first-time homebuyers up to $1 million. We have removed the consumer carbon price, which again, was important for rural communities. It is a strong policy that I was advocating for. I am glad to see that the government and the Prime Minister have been able to find a pragmatic way forward.”

Blois criticized the Conservatives, however, for not talking about food prices and agriculture during the election.