In the past couple of years, Australian farmers have proven that dual marketing is a non-sustainable option. Prior to the barley plebiscite the Conservative government had gag-ordered the Canadian Wheat Board and met with groups of non-board farmers only.
Then (agriculture minister Gerry) Ritz added dual marketing as a third option to the plebiscite, which resulted in dual votes from single ballot. The plebiscite results were: open marketing, 14 percent; CWB marketing, 38 percent; and dual marketing, 48 percent.
Shortly after the results were announced, Mr. Ritz falsely claimed the dual marketing option as 48 percent support for open marketing, resulting in his claim of 62 percent support for open marketing, making fools of the 48 percent of farmers who had voted for the dual marketing option. (Does their silence confirm that they are fools?)
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The moment Mr. Ritz claimed the entire 48 percent support for the dual marketing option as support for open marketing, all references to open marketing plus any non-existing multiples of co-operative marketing were removed from the dual marketing option.
As a result, in the dual marketing option there still remained 48 percent support for single desk marketing. The result was a total of 86 percent support for single desk marketing and 62 percent for open marketing.
The result of 148 percent of votes from only 100 percent of farmers completely invalidates Mr. Ritz’s claim that 62 percent of farmers support open marketing….
The CWB election results prior to the barley plebiscite, the corrected barley plebiscite results above, plus the CWB election results after the barley plebiscite, which included five additional non-board crops by Mr. Ritz, all prove that the majority of western farmers support the CWB.
Since the barley plebiscite, Mr. Ritz has told farmers, “…our aim is not to dismantle the CWB. We want to maintain a strong CWB…” while the Conservative government has been using the false claim of 62 percent support for open marketing at the World Trade Organization talks. Unless most farmers are willing to participate in the correction of Mr. Ritz’s false claims…Mr. Ritz will have made fools of all western farmers. Also, if Conservatives can accomplish fixed plebiscite results with only a minority government, what would they do with a majority government?
In the next federal election will political opponents be allowed to add their votes together to prevent Conservatives from being elected?…
Fred G. Willis,Saltcoats, Sask.
