Estey report
To the Editor:
We can chalk up another victory for the Western Canadian Wheat Growers and their friends in the railways. Justice Willard Estey has recommended that the CWB be removed from the grain-handling equation.
In his recommendation number 14, he says farmers and grain companies should be the “deemed” shippers of grain.
Suddenly the CWB is no longer my marketing agent.
As a sop to farmers, Estey offers a “Final Offer Arbitration” process. With this process, a farmer with a complaint against the railways can now go up against them alone.
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But not to fear! Estey says only the costs of the Arbitrator should be shared equally between the farmer and the railway. Let’s see: the cost of an arbitrator at around $10,000 per day, split between the railway and the individual farmer, four or five days of hearings; that could add up to a lot of grain.
Does that sound like a level playing field?
However, the WCWGA and the railways are terrified of a repeat of last year. The CWB took on the railways in a quasi-judicial process and won. The results are CN settling out of court and the CWB suing CP Rail for $45 million in damages.
So if Estey’s recommendation is accepted, something like this can never happen again. It will be the railway giants against individual farmers.
That would be a giant step forward for the railways and the Western Canadian Wheat Growers Association and a huge and permanent loss for grain producers in western Canada.
So congratulations to the WCWGA on a job well done.
I’m not sure how long grain farmers can afford you, but that doesn’t matter when you are doing such a good job for the railways.
p.s.: I’m willing to fearlessly predict that recommendation number 14 harming farmers and the CWB will be implemented and that recommendation number 8, advocating joint running rights on CN and CP track, will be ignored.
– Ken Larsen,
Benalto, Alta.
SARM record
To the Editor:
As the former president of the Saskatchewan Federation of Agriculture, I am writing to set the record straight about recent comments by Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities director Ron Gleim.
Mr. Gleim calls upon farmers to stick together to get a better deal from government in relation to roads, and maintaining elevators and railways.
I would like to ask Mr. Gleim and SARM where they were during the 1970s, ’80s and early ’90s. During that time organizations such as the SFA were fighting to keep the Crow Rate in place. We warned government and producers the elimination of the Western Grain Transportation Act would result in chaos in the grain handling system.
As we fought to maintain the elevator system, railways and the family farm, executive members of SARM, who sat on the SFA, voted to eliminate the Crow Rate and support the development of inland terminals.
Today, we have seen SFA’s predictions come to pass. Railways have been given greater freedom to abandon branch lines. Elevator companies are being forced to consolidate and build inland terminals, and our road system is taking a beating.
Now that SARM has seen the realities of the system it voted to support, and doesn’t like what it sees, the association is quick to change its tune. SARM’s call for a moratorium on elevator closures is inconsistent.
As well, the association wrongfully singles out the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool for blame in abandoning rural Saskatchewan. I assure you, the Pool was as vocal as SFA in fighting to maintain the Crow Rate.
The Pool has the most extensive elevator system in the province, therefore it will be hardest hit by the new realities of farming.
But it is not the only grain handler being forced to adapt.
I was in Oxbow the day SARM began calling for a moratorium on elevator closures. That same day, the Pioneer Grain elevator in Oxbow was destroyed. United Grain Growers has also moved to consolidate its system.
SARM has representatives in every rural municipality in the province, and their responsibility is to work with government to develop a system that will meet the changes their own organization supported just a few short years ago.
They should be working with government to support retention of viable branch lines, so some elevators can be maintained.
It makes no sense to keep an elevator operating where there is no track.
The taxes alone will eat up any advantage to having an elevator on abandoned rail lines.
As the former president of the SFA, I worked hard to maintain the Crow Rate, and ensure the future of family farming. Everything we said as an organization has come to pass. It is time for SARM to accept responsibility for its past actions and work with the new realities their organization helped to create.
– Clarence Hookenson,
Kisbey, Sask.
Select incentives
To the Editor:
Recent incentives offered by Agricore, for grain hauled between Dec. 7 and Jan. 8, don’t appear out of the ordinary. All grain companies offer incentives these days.
It appears when we receive notice of such “incentives,” we assume that everyone has received one. Maybe it’s time for an entrepreneur to set up a bulletin board so all grain companies’ incentives are all up for public scrutiny.
Agricore’s current incentive of $2 per tonne delivered may go towards your Christmas Visa or MasterCard bill, or as a credit to your Agro account.
In my case this amounts to more than the cash portion of my patronage dividend cheque which I received in October.
Unfortunately, only select members at select elevator points were offered this program (a select member brought this to my attention).
If you haven’t received your “tonnes of credit card rebates” voucher, ask for one.
After all, you are an equal owner of Agricore. What happened to Agricore’s commitment to equitable treatment, integrity, openness and honesty?
Maybe that’s why they painted over the words “a farmer-owned co-operative” on their elevators in Alberta.
– Michael J. Monner,
Milo, Alta.
Voting strategies
To the Editor:
With the CWB Director elections completed, numerous interpretations have been advanced on the voting patterns. Some require further discussion.
Voting with a preferential ballot provides for some strategic moves.
In our democracy the ballot provides the freedom to vote as we desire, but with the preferential ballot some unintentional outcomes may result.
An election usually consists of candidates and their platforms.
In this election, most candidates were advancing either single-desk selling or dual marketing. Voters made ranked choices based on personalities or marketing issues or a juxtaposition of both.
Firstly, the assigning of a rank of one to only one candidate and stopping here. This does justice to this candidate if he leads and counts and gets a majority vote.
One does not compromise his vote if other candidates that support the same principles are ranked; for by doing so the voter is still exercising control should his preferred candidate be dropped by being the lowest in votes in a counting round. Thus, a position is advanced.
The NFU and the WCWGA suggested to their memberships that they rank only candidates supporting their respective positions and not to rank any opposition candidates.
This was strategic advice, as through the vote a position is advanced and not necessarily only a candidate, unless there was only one subscribing to a particular platform.
Secondly, and this is where some interpretations were flawed, is when through the counting rounds the last candidate is dropped.
It is my understanding that in many districts counts “went to the wire” before a winner with a 50 percent plus majority was declared.
The situation here is not related (though it could be) to voters casting choices because of regionalism or an all about switch, but many voters were under the impression that all candidates should be ranked.
Thus, the irony – a single-desk voter assigns a rank to a dual marketer or vice versa. These last number ranks translate to viable voters, as they are not exhausted. In a close contest, this could result in an unintentional outcome because of the vote count and not the preference of the voter.
In closing, many other interpretations could be put forward.
It is my contention that the preferential ballot does provide for a more positive expression in terms of the ballots cast.
– Dave Powley,
Sherwood Park, Alta.
Small farmers
To the Editor:
In regards to Mr. Pike’s comments (Dec. 17 issue), I agree with him that a cash bail-out for farmers will raise taxes, but who is he implying are the poor farmers lingering in the industry, undermining the top producers?
How many areas of the prairies has he toured in the past few years? Just who are the poor farmers? I’ve gone to many auctions in the past decade and what I’ve noticed is that a lot of these poor farmers are the ones who decided they wanted to be one of the big boys in the industry and thus since they couldn’t foresee all the potential downturns in farming, a lot of them are the first to quit.
Some of your so-called poor or small farmers have quit because they’ve simply gotten too old to continue and their children usually don’t want anything to do with farming in its present state.
There are still small to medium farms that aren’t running huge debt loads, unlike some mega farms.
Mr. Pike should be in parliament. He says “not helping small farmers will cause many to leave the business, but that’s business.”
What a typical statement. Does he know what it’s like to bite the bullet and live within one’s means? (Something too few people are willing to do). If people would have taken catechism courses here where I took them, one would have been taught that greed is a sin, not to mention the root of all evil.
Mr. Pike apparently didn’t mention with his solutions to end all, what will happen to all the rural areas once the mega farms start taking over.
Mr. Pike, how dare you question the integrity of the smaller farmers! Where would this country be without small businesses in all sectors throughout?
It’s the system that’s driving small farmers off the land, not inefficiency; from what I’ve seen inefficiency can drive off both small and larger farmers.
Unlike in the past, capitalism today has few human virtues. It has become materialistic, consumption oriented and cold.
Let’s face it, the world is in a rut and it’s having a profound effect on food producers.
We have not only a farm crisis, but the potential for a national crisis. If the large farming operations were indeed the answer for the past decade and a half, then why does the large farmer need any help at all?
We had better start looking at the state of our entire Canadian economic situation which is a good part to blame for driving up farmers’ input costs.
We have had strikes in so many sectors of our economy. The demand is not only for more money, but that elusive high standard of living.
The elimination of the Crow, ever increasing transportation costs, loss of many local elevators and our crumbling highway system; all things the politicians and bureaucrats are turning a blind eye to. These are going to hurt more than just the farmers.
Where will all this lead to? It will lead back to the land, the roots of everything and everyone.
– Allan Schriml,
Pilger, Sask.
Election problems
To the Editor:
The election results are in, again. The votes have been counted, some of them. …
There were the missing candidate profiles in the voting packages. I wonder about a co-ordinator, who cannot stuff envelopes properly, being hired to administer an election of this importance.
We all know about the problems counting the votes, but the trouble was fixed and the integrity of the vote restored.
But the biggest issue that sticks in my mind is the fact that there were many bona fide producers, through no fault of their own, who were denied their right to cast a ballot. …
– Gordon Nelson,
Milo, Alta.
