SASKATOON – Farmers have given up the Crow rate rail freight subsidy without a fight, said a Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipality delegate.
SARM delegates defeated every resolution supporting the Crow during their 90th annual convention.
Dan Kachur of Lanigan was the only one of 600 voting delegates to speak in support of a resolution to keep the Crow Benefit paid to the railroad.
“We listened to the prime minister last night. We kept our cool and we respected him, but today is a different day. We are losing control, gun control, our Crow Benefit, next we’ll be losing the wheat board. Don’t we have anything to say?” he asked the delegates just before they soundly defeated the motion.
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“Are we that desperate for money we’d take a handout to shut our mouth?”
Delegate Ron Bean of Rouleau said delegates are only facing the facts since the Crow Benefit paid to the railway to ship grain to the coast is gone.
“We all listened to the prime minister last night – it’s gone. Why fight it?”
Bean said delegates realize the government is “flat, busted broke.
“There is a mood change. A lot of it’s due to the budget.”
Bean said the delegates never twitched when the prime minister defended his budget before the group during its anniversary celebration the previous evening.
“He had us eating out of his hand. You never heard one wimper out of the crowd when he brought the Crow up.”
The turning point for many farmers was when Saskatchewan Wheat Pool and SARM officials, among other groups, agreed to a $7.2 billion buy-out proposal suggested by farm leaders at the beginning of the year, said Kachur.
“They caved in right off the bat.”
Kachur blamed much of the Crow’s demise on the Western Canadian Wheat Growers. He said some delegates brought anti-Crow resolutions to every convention and finally wore farmers down.
“They’ve been fighting us at every convention. Now they’ve finally won and the farmers are the big losers.”
SARM president Sinclair Harrison of Moosomin said he thinks the delegates realized there was no point fighting over the Crow issue.
“They realize it’s a final settlement and there is a change coming about and they may have to change the way they operate their farm.”
