Gravy train
I am a small farmer in central Alberta. I have 160 to 180 acres into crop, 70 acres to green feed for 35 range cows, one quarter section for pasture.
Summer of 2002 we sat by and saw our barley crop burn up day by day. The only outlook was the crop insurance that we had. I have paid into this insurance for the past 25 years and never collected five cents. The adjuster came and gave the crop a total loss. Before the year end, I got a cheque for $14,300. What a relief.
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OK, March of 2003 we got our income tax in order and guess what? The government wants $14,500. And I thought the drought was bad.
So what now? Guess I’ll have to pay my banker a visit, then next year send (Jean) Chrétien the interest bill.
Why do so many people think the farmer is on the gravy train?
– Lyle Benkie,
Bashaw, Alta.
Change at top
Saskatchewan Wheat Pool would not be in the precarious position they are in today if they only would have managed their financial resources more wisely.
The share offer did very well and would have served the customers and owners of the Pool very well. In my opinion, the share offer did too well for many board members and some senior management people.
Simply put, they couldn’t handle the position they held and the decisions that have to be made when you sit around that board table. Board and senior management just overspent.
The decision that was made to embark on what the Pool calls Project Horizon was their biggest mistake. This, as I understand, was a commitment to build 22 cement terminals in Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Alberta at an estimated cost of $275 million and ended up costing over $300 million.
In the year 2000, along came a new president and a new chief executive officer. It was at about this time that the Pool’s market share dropped from 45 percent to 22 percent. The customer base lost confidence in the leadership of the Pool.
SWP, which had once been a financially sound company and had high credibility in the province, in Canada and around the world, now began to lose ground very quickly. …
We hear much about the drought of the last two years in parts of Saskatchewan being the cause of the problem. The drought didn’t cause the problem. It only made an already bad situation worse.
SWP was the largest co-operative in Saskatchewan. Who knows where it will end up?
I am very disappointed to see such a great co-operative let down not only the farmers of three provinces but even the whole country of Canada. Our business climate in Saskatchewan has been hurt, jobs have been lost, families have been hurt because of reduced business.
Yet the arrogance coming from the leadership still seems to prevail. Look how they attempted to get the bondholders to accept as low as one percent interest on the major portion of their bonds.
You, the leadership, have let us down. It’s time for a change at the top.
– Leander Buhr,
Former SWP Director,
Herbert, Sask.
Violet remembered
I much enjoyed the article and photograph of Violet McNaughton in the Western Producer of March 20. Her photograph is just as she appeared to my brother and me when we accepted an invitation to visit her in her office in the fall of 1939.
We were teenagers who had been contributing to the Young Co-operators pages, and who had recently enrolled in the College of Agriculture at the university. We were batching in a little garret room on Third Avenue (in Saskatoon) and I’m sure feeling a little homesick at the time. …
We did not have money to spend on food but frequently did receive cartons from home containing home-baked bread, butter, eggs, garden vegetables and jars of preserved meats and fruits.
Despite the good farm food, I was always pale and thin due to as yet undiagnosed allergic reactions to the glutens in wheat and oats.
Mrs. McNaughton’s first reaction on seeing me was to open her desk drawer and bring forth a bottle of iron and yeast tablets. She handed them to me and said that she wanted me to try them. I was caught off guard and could only stammer a thank you.
She was dressed so plainly that it seemed she could scarcely afford to buy them for her own use.
I did try them and they did improve my health, presumably because they contained both iron and folic acid, which proved in later years to be two nutrients that were not adequately absorbed by my gluten-damaged system.
That was her style, kindly but factual, and I’ve never forgotten it. She treated all young people who visited her, whether she knew them or not, as members of her family. Indeed she and John had no other family.
Until I read Elaine Shein’s article, I wasn’t aware of all of the important human issues she was championing. It was amazing enough that she was so involved in helping young people develop skills in thinking and writing about the broader aspects of life.
– F. J. H. Fredeen,
Saskatoon, Sask.
Spudco answers
On March 19, while working in my office, I was listening to our legislative assembly on TV.
The Saskatchewan Party was attempting to get some answers from the New Democrats on the Spudco fiasco. Brad Wall, the Sask. Party member, asked the NDP why they didn’t listen to a report that stated that the potatoes involved were unusable for french fries. Clay Serby, the minister of agriculture’s response was that not only does the Sask. Party know nothing of potatoes, they also know nothing about agriculture.
I would like to ask Mr. Serby how many members of his party are from rural ridings or are farmers, as opposed to the Sask. Party, who are almost all from rural Saskatchewan?
I would also like to ask Mr. Serby where was his party when Saskatchewan farmers were publicly begging for support?
The NDP’s answer to ag problems? Raise crop insurance premiums two years in a row. What an agricultural genius. Not!
– Cory Zadorozniak,
Estevan, Sask.
Gun registration
Our local newspaper recently had an article by the federal government regarding gun control, which has prompted me to respond to the misinformation, deception, and lies which is called gun control.
First of all, what our Liberal government and friends are attempting to enforce, which is costing $1 billion plus is not gun control. It is called gun registration.
This country has already had some of the strictest control laws in place. There are three groupings of guns in this country. They are: illegal, which no one is allowed to possess; restricted, which must be registered (handguns, etc.); non-restricted, which need not be registered. These are hunting rifles and shotguns used by farmers, hunters, and trappers.
What the government of the day is attempting to do, and which is costing $1 billion plus, is simply attaching a number to a gun, and an owner to the number, and then entering it in a computer hard drive….
Gun registration has never saved a life and never will. The gun laws that we have always had in place may save lives, but gun registration is a $1 billion plan which is useless.
It leaves one in awe, frightened and suspicious as to why our government is so intent on wasting $1 billion plus on a totally meaningless plan called registration.
It is frightening because now the government has created a criminal commodity called guns.
In the past years, gun registry computers have been breached 221 times. That means that should you decide to register your gun, it means that now the criminal element also knows that you have guns, and what kind of guns.
This places you and your family in danger. Should that gun be stolen and a violent crime committed, you are now a suspect rather than a victim. There is nothing that is secure from a criminal.
Our police chiefs threaten gun owners that their objective is full compliance. Does one register or not register?
Who is the most frightening – the criminal or our government? This is not some fictional fear. This is real….
People have generally accepted the gun laws, which always have existed, but are opposed to this insanity implemented by our government and their self-interests groups who care for no one’s safety, but only their own petty agendas. …
– Vern Schaab,
Unity, Sask.
Personal applause
It was heartwarming to read Gerry Gauvin’s article on page 7 of the March 27 issue of the Western Producer, as well as that of Karen Briere on the Farm Living page, Feb. 27 entitled “Activist touts co-operative ideals,” the reason being that encouraging news about credit unions and other co-operatives is so very rare.
As a 60-year member of a rural credit union that was organized early in 1943, it is my opinion that co-operation is just as relevant today as it was during the 1930s depression when credit unions and other co-operatives brought peace and courage to so many that had no hope.
At this time as we are faced with the drastic agendas of the powerful transnational corporations who have, without doubt, immense control over all governments and political leaders to privatize many or all public services and for certain to exact extreme pressure on all social programs.
Therefore, the need for co-operation and social justice is more important now than at any time in history.
To Trish Paton and Gerry Gauvin, my personal applause.
– Charles Diemer,
Woodslee, Ont.
