Letters to the editor

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Published: February 19, 2004

Proud of Sask.

This letter is directed to Mr. Wakefield and all Saskatchewan Party MLAs. There is an old saying that if a lie be repeated often enough, it takes on an air of truth. We have listened to the Saskatchewan Party continually harping about the $30 million Spudco failed investment and a host of other failed investments made by the NDP government.

You say these things happened in the past. I say to you that if you wish to dwell in the past, let’s go back to the decade of the 1980s and look at some of the failures of the Devine government.

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A large kochia plant stands above the crop around it.

Kochia has become a significant problem for Prairie farmers

As you travel through southern Saskatchewan and Alberta, particularly in areas challenged by dry growing conditions, the magnitude of the kochia problem is easy to see.

I clearly remember the night of April 26, 1982, when the Conservatives won the election. Grant Devine strutted up to the microphone, raised his hand over his head, and stated “Good old Saskatchewan is never going to be the same. We are not going to be seventh or eighth. We are going to be Number One.”

The first part of that statement was right on. Good old Saskatchewan has not been, and never will be, the same again. I recall that it took the Devine government only nine months for Bob Andrew to announce that the province would be in a deficit position for the first time in 38 years. Another Devine success is that he was the architect of the out migration of Saskatchewanians. In 1985 the province was suffering a drought and people started leaving in droves …

The Saskatchewan NDP government is blamed for a deficit in 2002 caused by huge crop insurance payouts and millions of dollars caused by fires, with no help from the federal government. I suggest that Saskatchewan Party MLAs call a halt to their negativity about Saskatchewan and start to mention some of the good things we have here. Then maybe there wouldn’t be as many people leaving our province….

I am proud to call Saskatchewan home and have no intention of leaving.

– Walter Opperman,

Mervin, Sask.

What to do?

…I left Saskatchewan some 57 years ago, but we still end up in Spiritwood every summer, even if we go to the Yukon first. …

We have lots of relatives still there, all good cooks, lots of laughs and good company, why go anywhere else? There is always lots to do, even if it’s helping to get the swather or combine ready for harvest. I still haven’t learned how to sit around and visit. …

My grandkids visit often. They all make a point of saying “Papa, is that the only paper you read?” referring to the Western Producer. I explain to them what all it covers, and it is a very educational paper, covering Canada and much of the rest of the world. I tell them it is an old newspaper that’s been around for many years. The name should have been updated long ago. Here we call it the Prairie Bible, and the grandkids do also….

The reason for this letter is because it snowed 20 inches here, the weather is lousy. So what to do? Close the doors, grab paper and pen, and try to keep insanity at bay.

– James Szasz,

Ladysmith, B.C.

Fair trade

Peopleless homes in the countryside. Homeless people in our large cities. Is that the future for today’s primary producers of food, whose parents and grandparents braved the elements of unforgiving prairie winters and who cleared the land of trees and rocks, to make this region of Canada one of the largest producers of food grains on our planet in less than 100 years?

We hear a great deal about the efficiency of the industry of agriculture. And, yes, it is a fact that transnational corporations are very efficient in removing farm families from the land. They have been aided and abetted by many of our political leaders and departmental bureaucrats, by promoting agricultural policies that may not be ecologically sustainable.

Naturally, when a number of farm families leave the land, there will be more gross income available to fewer farms. But what is presently happening to the income of the remaining farms is quite revealing and depressing.

In 1947-49 average gross per farm income was around $30,000. Average net income for the same time period was nearly $20,000. Last year, 2003 – remember that there are now fewer farms in Canada – the average annual gross per farm income was about $139,000. But the average farm net income was zero, and even a slight loss. The figures above include government payouts, and are adjusted for inflation.

It is no wonder that many businesses in our small town communities have locked their doors and boarded up their windows.

On average, primary producers’ net income is next to nothing, while at the same time consumers are paying more than ever. There is no relationship whatsoever between what the producer receives and the amount the consumer pays. Why is this happening? Since prime minister Brian Mulroney abolished the Foreign Review Investment Committee about 18 years ago, 10,441 Canadian corporations have been taken over, mostly by U.S. firms. They include almost all of the major areas of Canadian production. …

Most of our Canadian industries are now majority owned by foreign transnationals, mainly U.S. based. Compare that to corporate control in the U.S., where not a single American industry is under majority foreign ownership. Not one. Canadian investors have approximately eight percent invested in U.S. corporations.

There is only one way to stop the sell-out of our sovereign Canada and that is to abrogate the Free Trade Agreement, NAFTA and Chapter 11 of NAFTA. It is time for Canadians to say to our leaders, “this has gone on for far too long, Canadians desire fair trade, not free trade”. …

– Leo Kurtenbach,

Cudworth, Sask

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