REALIGNMENT NEEDED
The Western Canadian Wheat Growers Association appears to belong to the ostrich family. It continually hides its head in the sand and only appears when Ottawa needs a relevant farm group to lobby against the majority of producers.
The WCWGA’s record of supporting policies detrimental to farmers is astounding. It supported the demise of the Crow rate and soon after it collapsed for lack of membership.
But industry revived it so it could go on working against farmers.
The WCWGA opposed the Farmer Rail Car Coalition managing the federally owned grain hopper car fleet, even though this would have saved farmers millions in inflated railway company costs for maintenance. Thanks to the WCWGA, the railways now control the hopper fleet we all paid for and farmers must pay more for access.
Read Also
Agriculture needs to prepare for government spending cuts
As government makes necessary cuts to spending, what can be reduced or restructured in the budgets for agriculture?
The WCWGA promoted destroying the CWB and its single desk, which has left farmers in a logistics nightmare costing hundreds of millions of dollars. Now we have little to no transparency in prices and the grain companies are taking excess profits in the hundreds of millions from farmers. Destruction of the CWB has also taken away any significant producer control and input into their own commercial industry.
Prime minister Stephen Harper crowed about the destruction of the CWB and the resulting economic growth that would occur, like the phantom Regina pasta plant, which has not yet appeared. In fact, the Harper government has now given money to an existing pasta plant in the east. It was no surprise that during the federal election the WCWGA was in Regina dancing like puppets to support the fallacy of a pasta plant being built there.
It’s not too late for the WCWGA to align itself with producers, lose its connection to the corporate world, and wean itself from federal agriculture grants. It could join the majority of farmers that support farmers having some control of their own industry like they did with the single-desk CWB.
If the WCWGA continues to support the middlemen, its fate as well as that of the Tory government, will be sealed and they will be gone after the next federal election.
Eric Sagan,
Melville, Sask.
NO EXCUSE
Re: Cruelty laws can be enforced without jeopardizing farms (WP editorial, Apr. 16)
If my neighbour is having marital problems, mental health issues or financial woes and decides to break all my windows, he will not be excused from paying for the crime he has perpetrated against me simply because of his personal difficulty, even if that circumstance is taken into account. Neither should a person who causes harm to animals be handled with a “more deft touch,” no matter what the situation.
In fact, because almost every aspect of an animal’s life is in the control of humans, and often (as in the case of farms) out of the sight of the public, perhaps it’s our responsibility to be even more sensitive to crimes against them, as such crimes always consist of causing pain, suffering and mental distress to a living being. They have a fundamental difference to other ‘property’ — they feel pain, unlike my smashed windows. And unlike me, the owner of the windows, animals cannot speak for or defend themselves.
Debra Probert,
Executive Director,
Vancouver Humane Society,
Vancouver, B.C.
WE NEED THE TRUTH
In his attack on the NDP, Cypress Hills-Grasslands MP David Anderson himself (in his April 24 response), has many of his facts wrong or omitted.
For example under his “marketing freedom,”on Feb. 26, 2014 No. 2 CWRS (13.5) wheat was $11.38 a bushel port price. Prairie farmers received $4.69 (41 percent of port price) with railways and elevators receiving 59 percent.
By contrast, in 2009-10 single desk port price was $6.82 bu. with farmers receiving $6.16 bu. (90 percent of port price); 2008-09 single desk port price was $8.64 bu. with farmers receiving $8.10 (93 percent); 2007-08 single desk port price was $10.61 with farmers receiving $9.99 (94 percent).
The single desk CWB could load specific grain from multiple terminals, which often gained dispatch benefits rather than demurrage costs, which of course, was to farmers’ benefit.
Does Anderson really think private grain traders are going to take grain from competitive terminals?
No matter how many times Anderson and company say it, the single desk CWB did not buy farmers’ grain, it marketed it with all profits accruing to the producer — not private, for-profit grain traders.
The single desk CWB not only marketed farmers grain, it co-ordinated grain sales, transportation logistics, and the efficient use of port terminal facilities. It also kept railways in line as well as limiting the production of GMOs.
It’s time the “Harperites” removed their ideological blinkers and put some truth in their own statements before farmers become another endangered species.
Joyce Neufeld,
Waldeck, Sask.
