Letters to the editor

I’m a criminal

I am a gun owner that has tried for the last three days to get guns registered on line. In the end, we got one gun, one of many that should of been on.

I have tried my best. When we got on and put in our PAL (possession and acquisition licence) number, it told us we had unfinished files. I am not sure if this gun got put on a file that was only ours or did we wipe out someone else’s files?

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Worrisome drop in grain prices

Prices had been softening for most of the previous month, but heading into the Labour Day long weekend, the price drops were startling.

It is not a real good system if this is the case and we worked for three days to accomplish only this. I hope this gun is in the right place.

Now it is January 2003 and I am a criminal. I am not alone, since there were three of us trying to get it done and we all failed. This has to be the craziest thing I have seen our country do and I think our government’s priorities are very screwed up.

We are putting all this money out to save a few lives for gun victims and most of the acts are caused by black market guns anyways.

There are lots of people in hospitals waiting for heart transplant, cancer treatments and other serious things. The money used for this gun registry should be put to use for hospital care.

This gun control is only making it hard for the hunters and the hard-working farmers that really need guns and use them for what they are for.

I am sure if a person is going to kill someone they will not use a registered gun. What about baseball bats, kitchen knives, golf clubs? People do not understand that a gun is only a piece of steel and a piece of wood.

Guns don’t kill people, people kill people. It doesn’t matter what they use, it will never stop.

We will save way more lives if we put it in to medical costs.

– Dean Franklin,

Vienna, Ont.

Difference

In the Nov. 28 issue of The Western Producer, Elaine Shein made reference to the People for Ethical Treatment of Animals group. She wrote: “… but chasing away animal rights or welfare groups isn’t always the best solution. Sometimes inviting them to learn more about agriculture is more effective, so misconceptions can be removed.”

Then, without missing a computer click, she switched to a visit from the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals to the Glass Family barn at Calgary’s chuckwagon races.

Apparently someone should invite Ms. Shein to learn the difference between the SPCA and PETA. The SPCA strives to ensure humane treatment for all animals. PETA operates under the principle that animals are not ours to eat, wear, experiment on, or use for entertainment.

If she truly believes this meets the needs of Canadian agriculture, she definitely needs to be invited to learn more.

The “motherhood and apple pie” statement by Jason Glass made a cute ending for her column but does nothing to promote the humane, responsible care for agricultural animals.

– Georgina Campbell,

Lamont, Alta.

Health priorities

It seems that governments today feel that they can get the answers to our problems through commissions. The commissions seem to be headed by people with university degrees but appear to be very short of practical knowledge.

The federal government commission headed by Roy Romanow cost the taxpayers of Canada $15 million. Now the federal government says it is not necessarily going to go by that commission. This commission appears to fall short of solving our health problems, regardless of the money that is spent or will be spent.

In the 1930s and 1940s there were five children in our family, none of whom had ever gone to a doctor. There were 40 to 50 students in our rural school, grades one to 10 inclusive and only one teacher. At that time there were only two students who ever had to go see a doctor, one with appendicitis and one with a broken arm, as she fell from her horse.

If necessary, excellent home remedies were used. Many students walked or rode horseback three to four miles to school, winter and summer. All students were expected to be outside on the playground at recess and noon hour, playing games and exercising.

Most of these students, upon arriving home, had outside chores to do, bringing in wood, bringing in snow to melt for the household requirements, and also some barn chores to do.

Obesity was unheard of. Diets were completely different from today’s diet. Most of our food was home grown or home raised, vegetables from the garden, also wild berries were picked, and meat raised on the farm, much of which was canned as there was no refrigeration or deep freezes.

There were no refined foods or additives in food. Soft drinks, potato chips, and nearly all junk foods were unheard of. Tobacco in those days didn’t have the additives and addiction that it has now.

In my opinion, with our present day living, no amount of commissions or money are going to solve medicare. Prevention has to have priority in preserving medicare. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

– Bill Howse,

Carragana, Sask.

Great disservice

I am getting tired of David Anderson’s fallacious criticism of the Canadian Wheat Board.

Although he is the Opposition CWB critic, it is becoming quite laughable when reading his statements condemning the evils of the CWB.

In his latest round of spin doctoring titled “Get the facts in CWB election,” he accuses directors of the CWB as either “intentionally misleading others” or being “simply misinformed.”

If the directors are misleading or are misinformed, then I ask, what are you, Mr. Anderson?

I charge Mr. Anderson with intentionally misleading the people by using selective information in attempting to mould public opinion. This was evident in pamphlets that were recently distributed by Mr. Anderson – the first showing the options available from the Ontario Wheat Producers Marketing Board and the second a reprint of an article from the National Post titled “The CWB makes it worse.”

To be misinformed is one thing but to willingly use half truths is quite another. He claims that most farmers favour a dual or open market system and that we would be better off without the CWB, yet has no substantive evidence to back up those claims.

He needs only to look at his own home town and surrounding area to see what a wonderful job the grain companies and railroads have done for the prosperity of farmers. Does he really believe that the grain companies will miraculously treat us better, value-added industry will spring up overnight and the Americans will welcome our grain with the CWB out of the way?

There are and will be workable solutions to the challenges that farmers face, but I believe Mr. Anderson is doing a great disservice to the farmers he represents….

– Lars Bjorgan,

Demaine, Sask.

Carbon theory

… Science is important to a farmer-rancher like me. The study of weather, soils and genetics affect me directly. … It’s when the government gets involved that I get scared.

Assuming the weather historians are right and the earth is warming, why is it warming? Could it be those guys in Eastern Canada left their doors open again? Makes as much sense to me as them thinking our western Canadian cows burped the temperature up.

Carbon emissions are not, I think, the cause of global warming just as freon 12 and styrofoam (were) not the cause of the ozone hole. Somebody just needed us to change refrigerants and wanted us to use more paper plates, I think. I don’t know exactly the motives behind Kyoto. … But I do know that carbon and carbon compounds are what life as we know it is all based on….

I think there is something else happening because it seems incredible to me that a cow’s burp or me starting the 4440 could change the temperature when I have been told that if a hurricane could be harnessed, one minute of hurricane would power the earth for a year. A hurricane carries huge amounts of warm air upward where the heat can radiate into space and a hurricane will last for weeks….

I have an idea I would like to sell the prime minister instead of Kyoto’s restrictions. Please give every farmer all the free fertilizer he can use and we will lock up twice as much carbon in crops as we used to and we will lower the temperature for him….

What if the J.M. Herndon and D.F. Hollenbach theory is right? In a recent article in Discovery magazine they suggest that the earth is powered from the inside. They theorize that about 4,000 miles under Kyoto is a five mile diameter ball of fissioning uranium. The heat generated by this self-regulated breeder reactor warms the oceans….

It powers the currents that move continents. It burps out volcanoes and its varying heat output is what gave us the last ice age and is the real reason for our present warming trend and it is totally beyond Kyoto’s control and probably that is a good thing. I wish I was beyond their controls also.

– David Ollen,

Lloydminster, Sask.

Pressure for rules

To the Editor:

There may be a drought in areas but the effects are complicated by man.

Sure, it was dry in many areas, reducing feed supplies, but it is not the first time this has happened. What set this one apart from other times of feed shortages is there are hay dealers and others out there trying to make a killing off the livestock industry, which has enough ups and downs on its own.

Almost everyone has top hay and top price. In reality, much of the so-called horse hay is mediocre cow hay and cow hay is, well, compost….

There are a few out there guilty of price fixing, in setting the price for others to follow. Some have even threatened others that they are selling too cheap. This could be a criminal offence.

I urge all livestock people to write your member of Parliament, member of legislature and other livestock groups and pressure for some rules and regulations controlling the sale of forage feeds according to its relative feed value and condition, and have feed analysis supplied by the seller. This would help control hay prices.

Hay dealers should be licensed and bonded and be knowledgeable about feed. I have heard of an instance where the dealer didn’t know what he bought – first cut or second cut. These kind are in just for a fast buck.

There are some that think the horse people will give anything. Well, I am not sure about that. They have their limit too. Some have a so-called disposable income. Many good horses will be slaughtered while others will face starvation.

These inflated feed prices are causing many herd dispersals and in turn driving the price of livestock down and disrupting lives of many people who depend on them for a living.

It may be true that we will soon see only meat from countries that are infected with mad cow disease and foot-and-mouth.

In reality, this feed matter should be everyone’s concern.