Attention grab
Let’s imagine a really good hockey player in the United States was found to have a sexually transmitted disease (STD) and he needed medical attention. This is not to imply any negative thoughts toward any industry or organization. I’m only trying to catch your attention with sex, drugs and rock and roll so you will read on.
Legislation based on science is a pretty general term unless you explain the type of science you are using. Some types of science are chemistry, biology and physics. Physics can lead to mathematics and into the science of math with a lot of probabilities.
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Agriculture needs to prepare for government spending cuts
As government makes necessary cuts to spending, what can be reduced or restructured in the budgets for agriculture?
The hockey player gets traced back to Canada.
Example 1. He grew up on a farm there.
Example 2. His relatives are Canadian.
Example 3. He flew over Canada on his way back from Russia.
This does not mean that all hockey players with a connection to Canada have an STD.
It does seem obvious that really good hockey players in the United States have some connection to Canada.
Now read this article again substituting “cow” for hockey player and “BSE” for STD.
It’s not a very good substitute for the playoffs, but the drama is building and we’re all players. Hang in there.
– Harvie Reekie,
Clarksburg, Ont.
Failed experiment
It is time to declare metric conversion failed.
I am a 54-year-old native Albertan and Canadian. I did my high school in the 1960s and learned Imperial, U.S. and metric measuring units.
In the 1970s, under the guise of science and world uniformity, our governments decreed that we were converting to the metric system. At about the same time, the United States passed legislation to voluntarily convert to metric. We went along, as Canadians often do, though even at the time I questioned the necessity of outlawing the old system.
In the intervening 30 years, our governments, media and schools have incessantly promoted metric and all but banished customary units. So we are now mostly metric, right? Wrong.
A quick survey of any Canadian newspaper reveals that in the classified ads we are still using mostly customary English units. Feet, square feet and acres for real estate, feet for boats and RVs, pounds, feet and inches for personal descriptions, etc….
Our priority in schools has been to indoctrinate rather than educate. Why has our measurement talk gotten so far away from the walk? I offer three points to consider.
1. English customary units evolved from daily life over hundreds of years, which insures their usefulness in that realm. For just about any application there is a unit well suited for the job. The flip side of this versatility is a degree of complexity that some deplore. There has also been some inconsistency in standards of measure between Britain and the U.S. because of a lack of co-operation.
The metric system, on the other hand, was developed in a completely arbitrary manner by the French beginning in about 1790. They took a version of the yard, named it the metre and derived most of the other units from it; always in relationships of 10.
The result is a system of total consistency but sometimes questionable utility. …
2. Forced metric conversion ignores the aggregate of tooling and structures our society has accumulated, which are based on English measurement. Most of these situations translate poorly to metric. Whether it is the 200 mile offshore limit, a 22 knot cruising speed, a two by four stud or the survey of western North America into square miles, the metric translations are often clumsy and obscure. …
3. Perhaps the most obvious reason that Canadians have not adopted metric more readily is the fact that our one next door neighbour, major trading partner and huge cultural influence didn’t follow through with their planned conversion. The U.S. established metric as their preferred system of measurement in 1975 but stopped actively promoting it in 1982…
What I really want to address is where we go from here. I think it is time to declare forced metric conversion a failure. …
My fellow baby boomers have, in my opinion, been slow to take our turn in politics. We allowed the previous generation to degrade the education our children received for reasons of political correctness. Now our grandchildren are entering school. Are we going to continue a history of irrelevance to much of our culture and society or will we see things as they are and have the courage to make the changes needed? …
– Edward Curry,
Youngstown, Alta.
Help with pain
In your paper of May 19, there was a letter to Dr. Clare Rowson regarding facial nerve pain and her response to how painful and debilitating this can be and how it is difficult to control with drugs.
My father has had this for four years now and for two years tried everything. The final specialist we went to said the only thing to cure it was to cut the nerve in the face, which results in drooping face and no control.
This was not an option he was willing to accept. At this point he could eat very little because of the pain and was desperate.
A neighbour who is a nurse asked if she could experiment and try to help. One of the partly successful things was using an acculite. This, as I understand, speeds up healing. It is the shape of a flashlight and you hold it over the affected area. This brought the pain down to an acceptable level sometimes pain free.
After this the nurse started candling his ears regularly. Within three days there was a huge difference and now, after two years, there are periods of a week or more totally pain free. Candling is now done once per week unless there is pain.
Hopefully this information can help someone else.
– Chuck McNaughton,
Dunster, B.C.
Accrual the answer
My idea (is) to make today’s farm support program, called the Canadian Agricultural Income Stabilization (program), 100 percent accrual and have it based on losses and not margins.
Farm support payments, if needed, will then be based on farm losses.
It’s up to both levels of government to decide how much they want to support rural Canada, whether that is zero percent or up to 70 percent according to the GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade) rules.
At least there would be equality in the system where there isn’t today using CAIS margins where 70 to 80 percent of Canadian farmers trigger nothing during years of losses.
If 50 percent of Canada’s farmers had losses, then 50 percent would trigger some support.
My suggestion to politicians would be to support farmers at the 60 percent level. This allows for a 30 percent loss according to the GATT rules and has another 10 percent loss for the farmers in lieu of the farmer’s share of a program.
Make CAIS mandatory for all Canadian farmers while into year two of this idea eliminates the cash filing of income tax.
CAIS is now based on losses and losses are into Statistics Canada for all politicians to work with.
This also has the farmers of Canada make the transition from cash filing of income tax to accrual filing without the farmers needing a tax break on the first year of accrual because they have to claim one and a half years income on the first filing of accrual income tax.
– Lloyd Pletz,
Fort Qu’Appelle, Sask.
Responsive MPs
The recent favourable ruling from the North American Free Trade Agreement panel has prompted some observations.
When the new crop of Saskatchewan MPs were elected, they spoke eloquently about consulting with their constituents. Great idea. And where has this consultation been in agriculture?
Large numbers of farmers support Sinclair Harrison and the farmer rail car coalition. Their position is endorsed by both the Liberal party and the NDP.
But the Conservatives do not support that proposal on grain cars. Farmers continue to elect members to the Canadian Wheat Board who support the single desk option. But Conservative MPs say the board should be abolished.
Do our Saskatchewan MPs do their research with farmers? Or are they listening to the directors of CN/CP Rail and Pfizer Corporation?
– Tom Findlay,
Moose Jaw, Sask.
