Earlier this spring, the tobacco growers of Norfolk County in southwestern Ontario were led to believe that the federal Conservative government had no money left to spend on buying out tobacco quotas from struggling farmers.

As recently as June 10, the Conservative MPs and ministers at today's Tobacco Exit Strategy announcement in Delhi stood up and voted against a motion from the House of Commons Agriculture and Agri-Food Committee calling on the Harper government to help tobacco growers ease out of their troubled business through just such an exit strategy.

Now maybe the Tories didn't like every last detail of the precise strategy the opposition majority on the committee put forward. And maybe it was yesterday's cash settlement with big tobacco companies that gave the government coffers the new funds to be able to change their mind so suddenly.

But it was also smart politics for the Harper government to turn tobacco's way.

Tobacco farming has been in serious decline for the last decade — down 60 per cent from 1998 levels by some calculations, more than 80 per cent by other estimates.

The reasons are by now well-understood: government advertising, strict regulations and high taxes to discourage smoking have worked, decreasing demand as they lower the number of Canadians who smoke. Tobacco companies are also using more foreign-grown tobacco in their manufacturing, further cutting demand for the Ontario-grown product.

The number of tobacco farmers in Ontario's tobacco belt has by some estimates been cut in half since the early nineties. Indeed, of the more than 1,500 potential growers who hold tobacco quota in Ontario, only six hundred or so are 'active.' Some quota holders have stopped growing themselves and instead rent their quota to those who are prepared to take the risk on farming it. Many farmers took a look at market conditions and opted not to grow altogether this year — this year's crop is expected to be only a fraction of the size of what was produced in the province only a few years ago.

All sides realize that the industry isn't going to recover and that those who relied on it financially are now in a tight spot with few options. The type of soil used to grow tobacco doesn't support a wide range of other crops, and the capital investment required to switch to different kinds of agricultural production is simply out of reach for farmers who are already losing money year over year growing tobacco.

On July 4 a group of tobacco farmers briefly closed the main street in downtown Simcoe, protesting outside the CIBC branch in support of one of their peers facing foreclosure.

An attempt by the previous Liberal government in 2004 to buy out tobacco quota from farmers was criticized for not going far enough — in the end, far more growers wanted a buyout than available funding would allow. Conservatives criticized the attempt as only helping one-third of tobacco farmers.

Today's announcement of $300 million of assistance for tobacco growers, with the lion's share going into a transition program to help farmers exit the industry, is not without its political risks. As with every announcement of agricultural assistance funding, critics are already pointing out that some large tobacco growers could stand to receive buyouts in the millions — a hefty sum for retirement or a fresh start in another business.

Not everyone will see farmer buyouts as the best use of public funds.

Arguably, no federal politician feels the heat simmering up from tobacco country like Haldimand-Norfolk MP (and Immigration Minister) Diane Finley. Whatever challenges she's faced in cabinet in Ottawa, the politics in her riding have been just as difficult.

The climax was a meeting in Delhi in late April, called by the tobacco growers to discuss their rapidly-escalating concerns. An estimated 1,000 people turned up — but Finley didn't, citing a 'security' concern because of threats she had received. Given the significant Ontario Provincial Police presence at the meeting, something which later caused a dispute over who was paying for the extra security, this explanation raised more than a few eyebrows.

Finley's statement to the angry farmers (in print, read out at the meeting) took a rather threatening tone — saying that if they were thinking of launching a lawsuit, forget it — because protests or other 'negative messaging' put efforts towards future government assistance in jeopardy.

Today those same growers must be wondering if their campaigning didn't, in fact, work after all. Possibly on the strength of their economic arguments. But also because of Finley's need to recapture their political support.

Hers is a region already hit hard by losses in the manufacturing sector, and still strained by the ongoing dispute with native protesters in Caledonia. While she usually declines to comment on agriculture (and for that matter, native) issues — leaving that to her cabinet colleagues, despite her own history as an opposition critic on the agriculture file — she hasn't been able to ignore the protests and angry community meetings all calling on her to take action to save more farmers and local businesses from foreclosure.

This spring, those calls have grown progressively louder — fueled in part by an ambitious Liberal candidate in the riding, humanitarian doctor Eric Hoskins, who despite being seen as somewhat of a parachute candidate from Toronto, has worked with angry tobacco farmers to try to make inroads in what might have been previously seen as a solid conservative base in the rural portions of Haldimand-Norfolk.

In March, some 150 tobacco farmers made a public spectacle of denouncing Finley, tearing up their Conservative membership cards, and marching over to Hoskins' campaign office to sign up as Liberal supporters. Finley dismissed them, and faulted them for 'terrorizing' her constituency staff.

Later in the spring, a group called the Tobacco Women of Ontario made a show of travelling to Ottawa to witness the debate over the Liberals' motion calling on the government to buyout tobacco farmers. (The motion was made by another local MP representing Brant, Liberal Lloyd St. Amand.)

The Liberals have reason to hope. Hoskins is a serious candidate who brings appealing personal integrity bona fides from his work with War Child Canada. And this is no 'yellow dog' rural riding for the Tories — Finley had to beat former Liberal Agriculture Minister Bob Speller to win it in 2004, and her supporters worked hard for her wins in some uncomfortably tight battles.

A scan of local media in Finley's riding reveals plenty of dissatisfaction with her performance as MP, and criticism of her actions on the tobacco file in particular.

Finley — who says she used to work on tobacco farms in her younger days — has tried of late to turn the tide, no longer leaving it to other local Conservative MPs to take meetings and lobby for the tobacco industry in her riding.

In making today's announcement, Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz made a point of calling his cabinet colleague a 'tireless proponent of an exit package' for tobacco farmers. A June news release from Finley's office boasts of her three recent 'high level meetings' discussing a possible solution, while the Liberals were just 'playing partisan politics on the floor of the House.'

For what it's worth, Finley also supports the industry, one could say, personally — far from being an anti-smoking crusader, she's known to have been a fan of regular cigarette breaks.

Her riding association president is a former executive with Imperial Tobacco, and will know his way around the tobacco file too.

More significantly, her husband, Doug Finley, is one of Stephen Harper's most important players as the chair of the Conservatives' national re-election campaign. If any internal polling suggested that the tobacco issue could move votes in Haldimand-Norfolk, he would know.

Today tobacco farmers could applaud the federal Conservatives for doing the right thing to help them out. But on the road to what the Conservatives hope will be more seats in rural Ontario in the next election, the Conservatives are also trying to help themselves.