Barry Wilson

Opposition critics accused the federal Liberals last week of sending mixed messages about the pace of prairie rail-line abandonment. Canadian Wheat Board minister Ralph Goodale is the tough cop, telling the railways they have an obligation to leave the rail system in place while it is being reviewed by Willard Estey. Transport minister David Collenette […] Read more

Not every farmer would have felt it, but Agriculture Canada economists say last year was a boom year in Canadian agriculture and nowhere more so than in Saskatchewan and Manitoba. But fasten your seat-belts for this year’s ride. In projections prepared by the department, 1998 will be a tough one across the Prairies. “It certainly […] Read more

A senior federal agriculture bureaucrat predicted the end of supply management last week and drew the ire of Liberal MPs for his prediction. Guy Jacob, chair of the Canadian Dairy Commission, went before the House of Commons agriculture committee last week to offer a message he already has given directly to dairy farmers: The moment […] Read more

Agriculture minister Lyle Vanclief last week said a senior dairy official was not speaking for the government when he said the end of supply management is inevitable. At a meeting of the House of Commons agriculture committee, Canadian Dairy Commission chair Guy Jacob said the moment the government agreed in world trade talks to protect […] Read more

Rural Liberal MPs, feeling the heat from a dairy farmer lobby outraged over government refusal to block imports of cheap butteroil for ice cream making, tried last week to deflect some of the criticism to the Canadian Dairy Commission. CDC chair Guy Jacob wasn’t about to let that happen. In the face of dairy complaints […] Read more

In mid-March, health minister Allan Rock traveled to the southwest Ontario heartland of tobacco country to announce that industrial hemp will be Canada’s newest farm crop this year. At Tillsonburg, headquarters for the flue-cured tobacco industry, Rock said prospective growers will be able to apply for licences now to get a spring crop into the […] Read more

The federal government has announced a $3.1 million expansion of the Agriculture Canada research station at Lacombe, Alta. It is the second phase of expansion of the meat research laboratory. The 1,500 sq. metre extension will double the size of the lab. Lacombe has the mandate to be the sole Canadian site of federal research […] Read more

Canada’s 25-year-old supply-management system is on the cusp of a revolution in which some basic assumptions of its creation will be challenged and changed, says the chair of the federal council that oversees supply management. It is time for marketing boards, created to service a domestic market, to switch their business mindset from protection and […] Read more

Another foundation of Canada’s supply-management system is about to be challenged. This spring, the National Farm Products Council will issue new cost-of-production guidelines that may challenge the theology that supply-managed pricing includes a guaranteed profit in return for limits on production. Cynthia Currie, chair of the Council, says the 1998 version of an appropriate cost-of-production […] Read more

The farmer-elected advisory committee to the Canadian Wheat Board has mended its internal divisions over tactics and now is united in proposing that the Liberal government not impose CWB reform without an approving farmer vote. “This is a major government initiative that affects the livelihood of farmers and it needs legitimacy,” advisory committee chair Art […] Read more