Stephen Harper ventured deep into Bloc Quebecois territory Sunday to promise the province's farmers he'll maintain policies sheltering Canada's dairy, egg and poultry industries from international competition.
At the same time the Conservative Leader is promising to spend more than $20-million annually to help open global markets for other farm products.
Mr. Harper talked up his reputation as a defender of Canadian farmers during a campaign stop in the central Quebec riding of St.-Hyacinthe-Bagot.
This seat has been held by the Bloc since 1993. The Tories finished more than 12,000 votes behind the Bloc in the 2008 election.
Canada insulates the supply-managed sector - eggs, dairy and poultry - from most international competition with high tariff walls.
Ottawa is resisting taking down these trade barriers in global trade talks as well as free trade negotiations with the European Union.
Mr. Harper pledged Sunday that this won't change and that he would "continue to resolutely defend supply management in current and future trade agreements."
In their campaign press release the Tories questioned whether their Liberal rivals are really committed to protecting supply-managed products from international trade, noting the "Liberal Party's platform makes no mention of supply management."
Canada's supply-management system restricts imports of rival international products, and limits domestic production by quota in a command-and-control approach to the farm economy that dates back to the mid-20th century.
Canada allows foreign producers access to a fraction of supply-managed markets but penalizes any imports above this with steep tariffs that often exceed 200 per cent of the good's price.
Ottawa has two contradictory agricultural trade policies. It fights for unfettered free trade for products, predominately from Western Canada, such as oil seeds, grain, wheat and beef.
But it supports continuation of the policies of supply management - import quotas and marketing boards - that increase the prices Canadians pay for dairy products, poultry and eggs.
The Conservatives are promising an extra $10-million for the Market Access Secretariat and the Canadian Trade Commissioner Service, to defend this country's farmers in international trade talks and to open new markets for products such as canola.
They're also pledging $50-million over two years to help bring new farm products to market, as well as money for preventing the spread of crop and hog disease.
Finally, the Tories are promising millions of dollars each year to boost the Canadian Food Inspection Agency's budget for inspecting global imports. Canadian farmers complain that their international rivals face less scrutiny of food quality than they do.
The Liberals said in return, they remain committed to supply management and released a statement from 1998 where Mr. Harper denigrated supply management as a terrible policy.
At the time he was head of a right-leaning lobby group, the National Citizens Coalition.
"Take for example, 'supply management,' our government-sponsored price- fixing cartels," Mr. Harper said in 1998.
"Canada's restaurant industry finds itself paying 3 per cent more for cheese this year, and 74 per cent more than an American food manufacturer."
He was quoted in The Bulldog, a National Citizens Coalition newsletter.
"One dairy farmer admits that politics might have something to do with it - 'if the federal government did something anti-dairy, there would be howls of outrage from our French brothers.' Quebec gets nearly half the country's allocated dairy quota," Mr. Harper said in 1998.
Steven Chase