Trade & war
In light of Stephen Harper’s quest to sign a free trade deal with India and other countries and attempts to sell them nuclear power plants, I feel we are sadly lacking outstanding leaders like Daniel Webster, a towering political giant.
His historic Senate speech and remarks have never been equalled. At that time the spinmeister of the most heinous kind equated a loss of freedom to protection and tariffs.
They were attempting to foist on the nation a new round of free trade. Webster tried to beat back an attempt to install debilitating free trade that always plagues the younger generations of a nation.
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Short rapeseed crop may put China in a bind
Industry thinks China’s rapeseed crop is way smaller than the official government estimate. The country’s canola imports will also be down, so there will be a lot of unmet demand.
“Where there is work for hands of men there will be work for their teeth. It is a great blessing for the poor to have cheap food; but greater than that, prior to that, and of still higher value, is the blessing of being able to buy food by honest and respectable employment. … He failed in his quest and the same tired argument about feeding the world and driving industry to the wall, lower wages and the slave argument prevailed. Doesn’t this sound familiar ?
As a result the trade turn went towards the lowest denominator. A depression followed, resulting in the American Civil War. This same tired scenario played out prior to the First World War …
The supposition today is (that) this cannot happen again. This is a very dangerous short-sighted supposition that has repeatedly occurred in the past. It always results in a major war.
If we want to avoid foisting on our youth another great world war and if we want to re-establish prosperity for all, free of debt and poverty, we must establish a parity price bill for our raw materials producers, re-establish tariffs to protect our industry and labour and repudiate free trade.
R. E. Kennedy,
Simpson, Sask.
Missed opportunities
Another year has passed with missed opportunities for western Canadian wheat and barley growers.
Prime minister (Stephen) Harper had promised that all wheat and barley growers would be free to market their grain to whomever they choose, yet four years later the Canadian Wheat Board monopoly remains in place….
The minister responsible for the CWB can direct the CWB to issue export licences to farmers or their agents. This is a policy, not a change to the CWB Act or the Customs Act.
If CWB officials refuse to issue these export licences, Canada Customs officers can be directed to stop enforcing export licence requirements. A free market would then exist just as with other grains.
Farmers who choose to market their grain collectively would still have the CWB option or could create their own truly farmer controlled board as in Ontario.
It is time for CWB minister Gerry Ritz to take his job seriously and make these changes. We do not need more political rhetoric that pits farmer against farmer. The time for action on real change is now.
Gerard Fornwald,
Lampman, Sask.
Help for farmers
In recent letters to the editor (Nov. 26, “Ludicrous bounty,” Nov. 19, “Dire straits,” Nov. 5, “Cattle plight,”) Ms. Brooke Aitken accuses the Saskatchewan Party government of ignoring farmers and ranchers. The fact is we have done more in two years in government than the NDP did in 16 years for Saskatchewan farm and ranch families.
First, we introduced the largest education property tax reduction in the province’s history and a long-term plan for education tax on agricultural land.
We have also introduced a province-wide $53 million, four-year Farm and Ranch Water Infrastructure Program that is providing tangible results in the development of wells, dugouts and pipelines in rural Saskatchewan.
In contrast, the NDP would not even tour the drought area of southwest Saskatchewan, let alone provide any support, after four years of consecutive drought.
Our $71 million Cattle and Hog Support Program provided direct support to 18,000 cattle and hog producers to help them purchase feed and address cash flow needs.
After years of increased premiums and decreased coverage under the NDP government, we took steps to improve the Crop Insurance Program. We also made further enhancements to the program in June 2009 to address the drought situation in northwest and west-central Saskatchewan.
Ms. Aitken apparently also doesn’t think historic income tax cuts and infrastructure investments will benefit producers. Perhaps she prefers paying higher taxes and driving on crumbling highways, as was the case under the previous NDP government.
We have implemented a number of other new initiatives, including the Gopher Control Rebate Program, the Voluntary Livestock Traceability Rebate, the Coyote Control Program and the Agricultural Crown Land Sale Program. Producers across the province have requested and supported these programs.
We will continue working with producers and industry to move agriculture forward in Saskatchewan.
Bob Bjornerud,
Saskatchewan Agriculture Minister,
Regina, Sask.
Health care
The state of the health-care system in Alberta has gone from brittle to broken.
It has gone from a system that provided competent care in a timely way to a system of triaged chaos.
We are constantly told by the free market ideologues running government that the health system is unsustainable.
We are told that one third of the budget is spent on health and that proportion is growing.
What they don’t say is that since the Klein “devolution,” government as a whole has declined dramatically. Albertans are getting less and less of government delivered services.
The numbers will show that spending on health care in Alberta has remained roughly the same in proportion to our GDP, currently consuming about five percent, compared to 16 percent of GDP in the United States with better overall outcomes in everything from infant birth weights and mortality to outcomes in cardiac care.
What is crippling the system is the constant tinkering and reorganization and the push to privatize services. We have just seen our third major administrative overhaul in 15 years.
In those same years, the deputy minister of health, essentially the system’s executive director, has changed 11 times.
We have a new chief executive officer of health services in Steve Duckett, an Australian outsider who, when finished with the government’s dismantling and outsourcing mandate, will leave Alberta, richer and having done health minister Ron Leipert’s and premier Ed Stelmach’s dirty work.
The new Alberta Health Services Board has only one person with a health administration background and several with backgrounds in private insurance.
The rest are prominent business types or political hacks.
My wife is has now been suffering with a bad knee for about a year. She has multiple health issues on top of that. We have been told there will be a two year wait for an orthopedic consult, not surgery, just the consult.
My wife suffers every day with acute pain and every move we take to get access is pushing us further into a private surgical suite.
Mr. Leipert, mission accomplished. I was one of the people protesting in front of the Alberta legislature when the infamous Bill 11 was passed and when Albertans were barred from their own legislature.
This is definitely a bitter pill to swallow and I will never forget the taste, especially at voting time.
Tim Belec,
Westerose, Alta.
Driving & cellphones
I am adamantly opposed to the new law of banning cellphones while driving in Saskatchewan. The penalty of $280 and four points on your licence is extreme.
If you were stopped at a stop sign and then pulled into traffic causing a huge accident, smashing up vehicles and maybe killing or maiming people, you would not receive any more for punishment.
When we are busy, I use the cellphone every day to co-ordinate the work the men are doing and moving to the next field. I also usually have to phone for parts or supplies.
When this issue first came up, I kept track one morning. I made two phone calls and received three. This is my mobile office that I use to run my farm.
If the intent is to ban distractions while driving, there are lots of other distractions.
I can see banning texting and typing on your laptop while driving as that would be distracting. … Are you going to ban mothers from driving down the road with kids fighting or crying in the back? That is definitely a distraction….
If this was a perfect world and everyone who needs to talk on the phone pulled over, this would not be as good as you might think. The ones who do stop now barely pull off the road.
If they all stopped, then as they all tried to get back into the flow of traffic it would be pure chaos. Would the resulting effect not be worse than the original problem?…
I don’t think I should have to lose the use of this valuable time saving tool because some people are too stupid to drive and talk on the cellphone at the same time.
This whole thing is a shortsighted stupid law.
Victor Hult,
Waseca, Sask.
Needed components
Important components necessary in a new farmer program:
1. Low fixed rate interest (three to five percent), capital and operating loans to reflect primary agriculture’s marginal returns.
2. A cost of production insurance program tied to a peer reviewed regional benchmarking program, focusing on farm practices and management to determine insurance benefit qualification and calculation.
These programs must allow for flexibility involving on-farm research and development, and provide an avenue of appeal to the producer.
3. Amendments to the taxation system transferring the tax burden from the beginning of the business’s life to the end. Elimination of depreciation. Allow all capital expenses to be deducted with the capital gain/loss and the government’s recovery of the deducted capital expenses determined when the asset is dispersed or the producer exits the industry.
4. Farmers owning their land base is important in terms of sustainability. Short-term leasing does not provide a foundation to implement sustainable land improving practices.
Garrett Osborn,
Big Beaver, Sask.
Quick attack
The article subhead on page 15 of the Nov. 26 Producer says “Federal agriculture minister quick to attack” (the Canadian Wheat Board). This about sums up our agriculture minister’s attitude when it comes to Western Canadian grain farmers’ interests.
The U.S. opponents to the CWB have tried many times through legal channels to kill the CWB and have been unsuccessful.
Their silence, since the Conservative government took over running this country, has been our constant reminder that this government is far from deeply concerned about the western Canadian grain farmer.
It concerns me that with an attitude like this toward the CWB our minister would rather not defend at the WTO, what our neighbours to the south see as a good thing for us, therefore, bad for them.
The CWB is one of the choices I have for marketing my grain. Believe it or not, I’m not held captive by the CWB or any of the other marketing choices I have.
To do away with the CWB to give us choice will certainly reduce our choices.
I have appreciated Wayne Easter’s presence in the House of Commons and his efforts to keep our ag minister accountable for his actions and sometimes inaction.
Henry D. Wiebe,
Vauxhall, Alta.
Compensation program
I’m writing in regard to coyotes. There are a lot of them, as well as timber wolves and cougars.
The bounty on them is OK but only so many should be culled because the coyote does control overpopulation of elk, moose and deer. As well, the coyote helps to control gophers, mice and rats.
There is an urgent need for compensation to livestock owners for loss of animals killed by predator animals such as coyotes, cougars, bears and timber wolves.
Farmers and ranchers in Saskatchewan need a livestock compensation program. It has been due for a very long time.
Manitoba has had a compensation program for all livestock owners since 1985, for all classes of livestock. When predators injure or kill any type of livestock, conservation officers inspect and confirm every incident that is reported to the agency.
The government then pays livestock owners 85 percent of the net worth that is fair market price or value in Manitoba….
If Manitoba has it, so can Saskatchewan.
Greg Hemming,
Esterhazy, Sask.
Credentials sought
In your Dec. 10 Opinion & Open Forum, you hosted an article by Robert Wright, who you claim is a climate scientist, but you did not list his credentials. As with anyone who is portrayed as an expert, I think your readers would like to know where he obtained his PhD, in what field of study, at what university, in what year and where he is employed….
A point missing from consideration in the debate is that Canada is a large, very cold country with a small population. We need large amounts of energy per person for heating and for transportation, compared to a smaller more tropical country.
Even if carbon dioxide is the major cause of climate change, which seems to be debatable and unproven, our large areas of forest and farmland absorb a much higher percentage of our emissions than almost any other country on earth.
As a nation, our net total contribution to greenhouse gases is probably one of the lowest in the developed world.
The Kyoto Accord was more about politics and the transfer of wealth than about dealing with pollutants.
Reducing the emissions to a per person basis gives a huge advantage to the most heavily populated but most polluting areas of the world, and puts Canada, no matter how clean we are, at a tremendous disadvantage.
John Leahy,
Taber, Alta.
