No thumbs up; Why coalition; Infrastructure; Taxpayer load; Pretend money; Feed the world; Wish list
No thumbs up
The vehicle I drive received fairly high marks from Consumers Report but if I were to look for, say, a new half-ton four-wheel drive I think I’d have to put on the brakes.
The latest Consumer Report uses such words as “unrefined,” “worse fuel economy,” “unsettled,” “thirsty,” “rear blind zone,” “performance just adequate,” “rough,” “noisy and thirsty.”
In fact, not one received a thumbs up.
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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 executives of the North American vehicle building business flew in their private jets to Washington, D.C., to ask the government for billions of dollars. I didn’t hear that their Canadian counterparts took private jets to Ottawa when they asked for money but it is amazing that these are the free enterprise people, the capitalist people, the entrepreneurs, as they like to think, but there they are, asking for taxpayers money, claiming they must save jobs.
These are the jobs which have turned out all of the above.
And a thumbs-up from Consumers Report doesn’t prevent us from purchasing a vehicle which turns out to be a lemon on its own anyway.
– C. Pike,
Waseca, Sask.
Why coalition
If (Liberal party leader Michael) Ignatieff wanted to send a message to the West that he cares, why did he sign a coalition agreement that would leave Alberta with no seats in Ottawa?
Why would he sign an agreement with a separatist party? … Why would he sign an agreement with Jack Layton and Linda Duncan, who want to shut down Alberta’s energy sector?
The coalition has just added more to the long list of why Alberta has no Liberal MPs.
While visiting his uncle in Peace River, enjoying the smell of the barn, did he learn Alberta is rat free? I hope we keep it that way. I smell a rat and I don’t like it.
– Faith Stewart,
Athabasca, Alta.
Infrastructure
In its 2007 budget, the Conservative government introduced its Building Canada plan, an infrastructure strategy worth $33 billion over seven years. Recently there have been reports of the federal government’s intention to devote more multibillions of dollars to cities in support of things like roads, sewers, public transit, waste management and community, recreational and cultural facilities.
What seems to have been lost in all the recent talk about infrastructure is our province’s children’s infrastructure, the schools in which our children live, learn and grow. The children’s infrastructure is in desperate need of attention.
As early as June 2007, the ministry of education identified a $1.8 billion backlog in school construction, repair and maintenance. In a meeting held last week with (Saskatchewan) minister of education Ken Krawetz and his officials, the minister acknowledged that next year, over 70 percent of Saskatchewan’s elementary and high schools will be more than 40 years old.
At our Saskatchewan School Boards Association provincial convention, trustees shared the effects on students of the deteriorating state of our province’s schools.
One trustee reported that only one of the 27 schools in his division did not have a leaking roof. Trustees spoke of high school students wearing parkas in class to stay warm. Others described schools bursting at the seams and libraries having to serve as classrooms. …
We were heartened, however, by the personal support expressed by minister Krawetz to address this issue; our association is committed to working with the government in any way possible to ensure this happens.
While sewers, roads, bridges, parks and public transit are important, can these be any more important to our country’s future than the health, safety and well being of our children and youth?
It’s time for the children’s infrastructure to start receiving the attention and financial support our young people deserve.
– Roy Challis,
President,
Saskatchewan School Boards Association,
Regina, Sask.
Taxpayer load
Now the federal government has finally admitted it is going to run a whopping great deficit.
That is to be expected. After all, for the last nine years both the Liberals and Conservatives have given tax breaks to the corporate sector at the expense of most of the social programs.
Now the individual taxpayer is carrying the whole load and there just is not enough tax money to go around.
What will the answer be? Naturally it will be to cut what is left of the social programs and never mind any thought of developing renewable energy or building low rental, affordable housing to fix the economy.
That will remain just a gleam in the eye of the NDP. What gross mismanagement, and they are all guilty.
– Jean H. Sloan,
Lloydminster, Sask.
Pretend money
The world’s governments, large corporations and financial institutions are managed by educated people. Is their failure in sustainability a result of the education harvested from the world’s universities?
If the world’s governments find enough support and pretend money to spend us out of this global recession and credit crisis, we’re destined to have it happen again.
– Garrett Osborn,
Big Beaver, Sask.
Feed the world
Reply to the letter of Nov. 6 entitled Farmers to blame.
We had a good crop this year, bins all full and piles on the ground.
In fact, it’s the best crop I ever had since I started farming.
We have only so many acres of good farmland in the world and in order to keep up to the demand for food, we need to produce all we can, and we can’t go back to the dust age and waste fuel and summerfallow again.
We have been continuous cropping now for 12 years and have no intention of ever going back to summerfallow.
We need to feed the people of the world, and 2007-08 will mark the seventh year out of the past eight in which global grain production has fallen short of demand.
The demand for food is rising rapidly and the population of the world is rising. About 2.5 billion people will join the global population in the coming decades.
Every six years we are adding to the world the equivalent of a North American population.
Are we over producing? I don’t think so, but I think we are in a opening phase of an intensifying food shortage.
– Arnold Helgeson,
Southey, Sask.
Wish list
At this special time of year, the Grain Growers of Canada would like to reflect on accomplishments over the past 12 months and look forward to next year.
On the positives, we’d like to recognize the transport committees of the House and Senate for their quick work in passing Bill C-8, which has led to the rail service review starting.
We’d also like to recognize our trade negotiators who have helped make substantial progress in closing the gaps in Geneva and finally, we’d like to thank the government and opposition for putting in place the biofuel legislation, which has created a strong market for our grains.
In the not so positive column is CN Rail for implying that because they have to repay some freight charges, they might take their trains and go home.
On the Canadian Wheat Board file, the pro-choice vote is getting closer to 50 percent and, at least on barley, it’s time for the CWB to start the discussion on what tools they might need to be an effective force in an open barley market.
Finally, the Ontario government must be chastised for implementing a pesticide ban based on quack science.
On the wish list for all farmers this coming year is: a safe season for them and their families; more resources for public plant breeding, especially in cereals and pulses; a fair rail service review; science-based decision making by our regulators; and safety nets that work when needed.
We wish you a Happy New Year.
– Doug Robertson,

President,
Grain Growers of Canada,
Carstairs, Alta.
