Prairie farmers are deeply divided over government proposals to change the Canadian Wheat Board and unrest will follow if farmers are not given more marketing choices, several senators told CWB minister Ralph Goodale last week. After weeks of public hearings, the Senate agriculture committee called Goodale before them as a last witness before considering how […] Read more
Stories by Barry Wilson
Corporations anticipate fall of wheat board: Hehn
Multinational grain companies are rushing to invest in the prairie industry because they anticipate the demise of the Canadian Wheat Board, CWB chief commissioner Lorne Hehn suggested last week. During an appearance before the Senate agriculture committee April 21, Hehn was asked by Alberta Liberal Joyce Fairbairn who would replace the board if its critics […] Read more
Special crops insurance passes House
Over opposition party protests, the Liberal majority on the House of Commons agriculture committee last week approved legislation to create a new insurance policy for western Canadian special crops producers to protect them from losses if dealers or buyers go bankrupt before paying their bills. The legislation now goes back to the Commons for final […] Read more
OTTAWA NOTEBOOK
The value of Canada’s food exports continues to grow, although in the early months of the year, imports rose even faster and the food trade surplus contracted. Statistics Canada reported last week that during the first two months of the year, the value of agricultural and fishery product exports was $3.787 billion, up almost three […] Read more
Cabinet ministers oppose law’s grain exemption
A split has developed in the federal Liberal government over whether to exempt west coast grain movement from the threat of disruption because of third-party labor disputes. Last week, there were Parliament Hill reports five cabinet ministers – four from British Columbia and possibly transport minister David Collenette – are urging the proposal be dropped […] Read more
Vanclief denies slow decision over farmer aid to Peace River
Federal agriculture minister Lyle Vanclief last week denied Ottawa is treating flood-damaged Peace River farmers less generously than Ontario and Quebec ice-damaged farmers. “There is no double standard,” he said in the House of Commons April 24. But Vanclief also has not announced new federal help for Peace River farmers as requested by the Alberta […] Read more
Nature snaps trees; gov’t bureaucracy shatters patience
CLAYTON, Ont. – In Don Dodds’ 60 years, there never had been a week like it. For five days last January, the freezing rain fell and after the second storm, he began to hear the cracking sounds from his sugar bush as branches and treetops snapped and crashed to earth. It was the ice storm […] Read more
Canadians eat less pork; industry targets foreign markets
Farmers are raising a record number of pigs in Canada, although the number of hog producers working with those pigs is at an historic low. And Canadians’ taste for pork continues to fall sharply. That, says Statistics Canada analyst Robert Plourde, is why Canada’s hog industry has its eyes clearly on the world outside Canada’s […] Read more
Goodale may miss deadline again with CWB bill
Canadian Wheat Board minister Ralph Goodale wears a watch set to Saskatchewan time, so he knows what hour of the day it is back home. He might want to consider adding a pocket watch, set to the parliamentary calendar. Goodale’s sense of timing has been one of the government’s problems during the three years it […] Read more
CWB rejects U.S. request to audit sales contracts
The Canadian Wheat Board has refused a request from the United States government that it turn over a sample of confidential sales contracts for the past three years for an American audit. And the refusal has drawn a demand from some Great Plains politicians that the U.S. administration threaten to close the border to force […] Read more
