What next?
How ironic that our soldiers are fighting and dying for democracy in Iraq and Afghanistan, while in our own country, with our Canadian Wheat Board, we appear to have lost our right to vote and lost the freedom of speech, with gag orders being issued.
(Prime minister Stephen Harper and agriculture minister Chuck Strahl) silence the CWB, yet your task force members can still speak out against the board. We appear to be living under a dictatorship.
What is this government going to do next? Enforce its beliefs with militant rebels? Sharpshooters to eliminate anyone speaking against the government?
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How much of our money is your government spending on your biased committee which is looking at ways to destroy the CWB? Why was this committee formed before all farmers on both sides of the issue have been consulted and given a vote?
Let farmers decide their own future. It’s not the decision of big business, government and a handful of radical farmers along the U.S. border. Give farmers their vote on their CWB.
– Leo Howse,
Porcupine Plain, Sask.
Leftist vote
The Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities has requested municipal council members and ratepayers to write (federal agriculture minister Chuck Strahl) voicing their opinion regarding the Canadian Wheat Board and marketing choice.
I commend you for following through with your campaign promise to provide marketing choice to western Canadian wheat and barley producers.
SARM talks of an independently estimated annual value of the single desk to be $355 to $405 million. I question the independence of that research, as I believe they are referring to research that was paid for by the CWB.
In a study by Colin Carter and Al Loyns, The Economics of Single Desk Selling of Western Canadian Grain, Carter and Loyns suggest the monopoly can cost western Canadian producers $20 per tonne, an annual loss to western Canadian farmers of $400 million.
As you are aware, SARM is a member of the Prairie Producer Coalition. SARM is not a farm organization. Its membership is made up of rural municipalities and receives its funding from rural property taxes. One has to ask the question, how can SARM speak for farmers?
Likewise the membership of Agricultural Producers Association of Saskatchewan is made up of rural municipalities and it’s funding comes from rural property taxes.
Like SARM, how can APAS support the CWB monopoly when producers that support marketing choice are forced to fund APAS through their rural municipal tax dollars?
Less then 40 percent of Saskatchewan rural municipalities are members of APAS.
If what the proponents of the single desk say is true, then the CWB will have no trouble existing and operating in a dual market environment.
The Prairie Producer Coalition and other leftist groups are asking for a vote. Give us marketing choice, Chuck, and we’ll do the voting with our trucks.
– Ormond Wedin,
Midale, Sask.
Market myth
… James Weaver, an Oregon Democrat and the only ex-commodity broker in Congress, introduced a bill to have the Commodity Credit Corporation take over the marketing of American grain.
We have a world of monopoly buyers and monopoly sellers and a few grain companies. The free market is a fraud and a delusion, said Weaver.
In his view, an American grain board would help the United States become an agricultural OPEC, a power denied to it by a fragmented system in which individual companies sell American grain to the highest bidder.
Wheat farmers could get $10 per bushel if the government were doing the selling for them. (There was) little enthusiasm on Capital Hill for his idea, as American ideology is tilted against government cartels and monopolies.
Long after the Canadian Wheat Board was established, the private grain trade kept trying to discredit it. It was said that the board was a socialist plot, with its compulsory prices and regulations on farmers and grain companies alike that destroyed initiative and threatened the free enterprise system.
Speakers from the grain exchange in Winnipeg crisscrossed the Prairies in the late 1940s and early 1950s trying to influence farmers against it but farmers were not persuaded.
The CWB survived.
– Laurence Qualman,
Saskatoon, Sask.
Beyond CWB
Is it just me or has anyone else noticed the irony of Saskatchewan’s minister of agriculture mentioning the oft repeated claim of “$300 to $400 million” benefit of having the Canadian Wheat Board as a single desk seller of western grains and in the same issue of The Western Producer (Oct. 12) have an official with the Canadian Seed Trade Association bemoan the loss of “$200 million a year that is arguably much higher when you consider the cumulative beneficial effects of plant breeding over time,” as a result of the kernel visual distinguishability restrictions?
On one hand we are truly fortunate to have these single seller rules for our financial well being and on the other hand we are losing millions as a result of another set of rules. Good grief.
Have we over-regulated ourselves to the point where no one can make any money? Has our distrust of the grain companies, the railways, politicians and other assorted bandits resulted in our acquiescing to the rules and regulations of the Canadian Wheat Board, the Canadian Grain Commission, the Canadian Grain Transportation Whatever and so on, to the detriment of the creative thinking, strategic investment and wealth accumulation that invariably ensues from great innovations?
I sincerely hope that these questions and related others are also looked at extensively in the upcoming Great CWB War.
I am pleased that both the feds and the western provinces are committed to researching the pros and cons of the single desk. If this debate encourages the responsible authorities to focus beyond just the CWB issue and to critically assess many of our other institutions, laws and regulations related to grain, then we will have made progress.
A revolution may be too strong a word but a good shake up is probably needed while there are still a few farmers left.
– Ervin Carlier Jr.,
Val Marie, Sask.
World price
With regard to the current dual marketing debate, farmers should consider what has been happening to our freedom over the last 30 years, not only in marketing our grain but also freedoms of expression and information.
Many of us still remember when world grain prices were published by the Western Producer in dollars per bushel and even then it was obvious some of the money was missing, which is why everyone stopped quoting prices in the late 1970s.
Now we are into a new century where farmers are on top of everything with cell phones, calculators, computers, faxes, e-mails. We understand daily price and 90 percent options, how futures, basis and fixed price contracts work.
We know the initial price, the current and deferred price, the pool return outlook and the final price, but I doubt many of us know the real price.
This is because nobody wants us to know. Ask anyone – your MLA, elevator agent, crop specialist or the CWB. You won’t get an honest answer. They all want a part in planning our destiny and have decided what we don’t know won’t hurt us. …
The CWB publishes Vancouver world selling prices daily and concurrently sets arbitrary farm values, which consistently end up $1 to $2 lower.
Prices are published weekly by Alberta Agriculture with No. 1 red spring, 12.5 protein having a high yearly average of $9.24 in 1995-96 and No. 1 red spring 13.5 percent protein 2006 high average of $7.43 ending July. 14.
This was $1.09 higher than the fixed price weekly average and $1.55 higher than the July PRO.
Some people don’t seem to understand why I am infatuated with world prices but I promise to stop harping about them just as soon as I start getting them.
Also I believe having all the facts would help farmers make better decisions.
– Louis K. Berg,
Sedalia, Alta.
Day’s work
I just received a phone call from my Mom (Ann) and brother (Ron) who live in Vilna, Alta., concerning a letter that you published from Stan Potts in the opinion section of The Western Producer (Oct. 12.)
The reason that this letter has touched our hearts is because Steve Bobocel was my dad. Stan and I grew up across the road from one another 10 miles south of Vilna. We were in the same grade, rode on the same bus, and graduated high school together.
The Potts made an impression on us, because they were originally from Montana and took us on summer vacations with them back to their home state. We became very close friends. As years pass, time has a way of separating those that were once close. However, the memories do come flooding back.
I can’t explain the feeling we have knowing that Dad left an indelible memory on someone that years later, they would invoke his name and poem that he was “famous” for. We all grew up living that poem and living the farm life that Dad was so passionate about. As stated with much love and joy at his funeral in 2004, “he had dirt in his veins.”
My mom and brother still live and work on the Bobocel Ranch that Dad built from the ground up. It is a testament to the will and determination of my mom and dad’s dream. Thank you to Stan for bringing back such wonderful memories and for reminding us that no matter who you are or what you do, you can touch someone’s life in special ways….
– Debbie (Bobocel) Nichols,
Huntsville, Texas
Our money
The Canadian Wheat Board fight seems to be heating up some more. This issue seems more politically polarized than Saskatchewan itself. Some people seem more scared of change than of death itself.
The Conservatives have it right on the mark again. The CWB has absolutely no business using farmers’ money for advertising or promoting its agenda of a single desk.
There are at least as many farmers in favour of dual marketing as there are of the monopoly, and that money belongs to all of us, not to the CWB.
These kinds of complaints coming from the CWB and those in favour of maintaining the monopoly remind me of that foul-smelling sense of entitlement that grew with our past federal government.
– Lorne Ridgway,
Avonlea, Sask.
Arrogant act
The recent gag order placed on the Canadian Wheat Board by (federal) agriculture minister Chuck Strahl should cause farmers to be shaking their heads. It is an act of absolute arrogance and contempt for the board and farmers and violates the principles of free speech and democracy.
Strahl attempts to justify his actions by stating the board reports to Parliament through him. Considering the negative attitudes he holds towards one-desk selling and orderly marketing, can farmers really expect to hear any objective reports about the board operations from him? He seems to conveniently overlook that the costs of board operations are paid for by farmers from the proceeds of board sales.
Strahl chooses to ignore that the majority of members of the CWB board of directors are elected by farmers. He is willing to drastically alter the operations of the board regardless of their advice or that of numerous other orderly marketing supporters.
It would be difficult to name any other responsible politician, past or present, who is so zealous in defying common sense as is this minister in his obstinate obsession toward scrapping the one-desk selling powers of the board for export wheat and barley by permitting the private international grain trade to insert their exploitive trading practices upon farmers.
He is prepared to turn back the gains farmers have made in grain marketing by 100 years.
It is appropriate to recall a statement of Paul Tillich, a German born Lutheran minister and professor of philosophy and theology prior to leaving Nazi Germany in 1933 when he observed: “The passion for truth is silenced by answers which have the weight of undisputed authority.”
This appears to match the tactics and intent of Chuck Strahl in muzzling the CWB.
Farmers need to think about that as he proceeds to destroy the marketing strength of the CWB.
– Stuart A. Thiesson,
Saskatoon, Sask.
Free country
In today’s debate concerning how wheat and barley are marketed in Western Canada, one very important point has been ignored.
Where do the rights and freedoms of western Canadian farmers fit in this debate? What gives any farmer or group of farmers the right to tell another farmer how he can market his grain?
In my mind, the marketing debate is not so much about who has the ability to do a better job of marketing. Rather, it has more to do with a farmer’s basic right to choose who or how he markets his or her grain.
We live in a great country with a democratically elected government and a legal system that guarantees the rights and freedoms of its citizens.
When one group of farmers is able to dictate how other producers market their own grain, I would say they are infringing on the very basic principles that our ancestors fought so hard to protect for this country.
A producer vote on the CWB monopoly is not necessary. No producer should be allowed to take away the rights of another, especially their rights to market their own production.
Yes, I believe in market choice. Unlike the supporters of the single desk marketing CWB, I am willing to let farmers that choose to, have the privilege of marketing their grain collectively through a CWB that does not have monopoly control.
However, they should also be willing to allow me the freedom to market my grain where and to whomever I choose. After all, we live in a free country and we should think long and hard before we agree to take that freedom away from any person.
– Brian Otto,
Warner, Alta.
Good stand
I have to commend (federal agriculture minister Chuck Strahl) on (his) stand against the Canadian Wheat Board. You should know that the majority of farmers I know stand behind (him) in this decision.
The articles dominating the farm papers don’t reflect my views or the views of many of my farmer neighbours.
The CWB has not helped in making my farm any money. Anything I have sold to the board is sold under the cost of production. It doesn’t make me any money on the farm and that is most important.
I would like the freedom of choice. It is my right to choose who sells my product. I am a 32-year-old farmer in Saskatchewan and I am the future of this industry, not some retired CWB farmer who is writing fear-mongering articles in the Western Producer.
Let me decide where I sell my grain, not a bunch of retired farmers or people who make a wage from the CWB.
Please don’t give up this fight. My farming future depends on you.
– Dwight Pomedli,
Wadena, Sask.
Spotty record
The Liberal party is seeking a new leader and a new image. Forget the past, they say. Canadians have long memories when it comes to fraud.
Not one of the leadership candidates has offered an apology to Canadians for the corruption that permeated the Liberal party over the past 15 years.
No one has mentioned the awful crisis we all face today because of Liberal policy. Without a public debate or a referendum, the Liberal government of the day accepted the Constitution Act of 1982, which included the Charter of Rights. It was an insult to all Canadians who accepted the English common law at the time of Confederation in 1867.
With a stroke of a pen, the Charter became the ultimate constitutional law superseding all the conventions, precedents, customs and traditions of our unwritten constitution. It did not grant one freedom Canadians did not already possess. It destroyed the checks and balances, which evolved over centuries to protect the rights and freedoms of the individual….
The fallout from Liberal policies has created crisis after crisis, which leaves animosity in its wake that may never be resolved. Canadians have become a race of litigants. We no longer have the right to private property, which has always been a cornerstone of a free and democratic nation.
The rights of the criminal take precedent over the rights of the victim. Long involved court cases, which allow appeal after appeal and finally plea-bargaining, has degenerated our legal system. Our justice system is no longer just. Our police forces find it difficult to do their job.
Liberal policies with respect to Indian Affairs has condemned the average Indian on the reservation to an archaic system which has never worked and which will eventually cause unrest and conflict in what was once a peaceful tolerant nation….
All this is the legacy the Liberal party has left to Canada.
Let’s hear what the Liberal leadership candidates have to say about these issues.
– John I. Fisher,
North Battleford, Sask.
Change mind
I farm with my son in the Mossbank area of Saskatchewan. (MP Dave) Batters presented me with a certificate of recognition on July 1, 2006, for my involvement in the grain industry, as requested by my peers over a wide area.
I was elected a delegate to the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool and moved up to first vice-president. I was also elected to represent a very large area of southern Saskatchewan on the Advisory Committee of the Canadian Wheat Board and was re-elected for four two-year terms.
I have been a member of the Grain Standards Committee of the Canadian Grain Commission and I gave a number of presentations to our customers at the International Grains Institute, and was asked to be part of a panel to solicit views from our many customers as to what they liked and disliked about our grain system and Canadian grain.
We sent out letters to this effect to over 70 of our customers. The over-whelming response was praise for everything – quality, service, followup, etc. The only negative response was that they had to pay too much.
One comment was that if you buy a quality product you have to pay a higher price, which proves the study by a number of economists that the CWB gets premiums.
One customer, Mr. Yap, who owns one of the biggest flour mills in Indonesia, made a special trip over to talk to the panel and talked about all the good things about dealing with the CWB. He always got what he wanted for grade; it was always on his dock on time, which wasn’t the case when he bought from the United States or Argentina.
His final remark was that if he is forced to buy grain other than from the CWB he would go to the other store, Australia….
I have had a lot of contact with most of our 70 or more customers that had nothing but praise for the CWB, the Canadian Grain Commission and for Canada. The CWB is one of the few Canadian icons left and it is known all over the world. Both farmers and the international world look to the CWB for reliable information on a host of things.
I have talked to many farmers and have had meetings with many farmers from all political parties about the CWB sales programs, quotas, etc. in the area I represented and the area that (MP David) Anderson represents. He claims to have the support of the majority of farmers in Western Canada and that is just not true. …
If you proceed, the consequences, both economic and political, will be far reaching. It doesn’t make sense to have six or more grain companies and dealers going around the world selling Canadian wheat and barley and 80 percent of them are foreign owned and sell from many countries.
It is the strength of a leader to change his mind if he realizes the consequences of an election promise, and not a weakness. He would get more support than he would lose.
– Avery Sahl,
Regina, Sask.
Fruit funding
On June 16, a group of Okanagan fruit growers met with MLA Al Horning at his constituency office in Kelowna, B.C. Mr. Horning had arranged that Patrick Bell, minister of agriculture, would meet with us. …
This was a meeting of commercial fruit growers, all of whom have carried out large replant projects under the provincial replant program.
During the meeting, the dire financial situation of the growers was explained to the minister. Mr. Bell told us that we might have to replant our orchards every three or four years to keep up with the new varieties.
Orchards don’t even come into production until the second year, and full production will not be reached until the fifth year.
Mr. Bell stated that there would be failures and that growers would go broke. The commercial industry has been told by the grocery-wholesale buyers that they do not want any more new varieties, as there is no extra shelf space available. We currently market some 28 apple varieties.
When we asked the minister if the province would consider buying B.C. products whenever available for institutional use, such as B.C. Ferries, hospitals, prisons, schools, he asked if we wanted to make B.C. an island state in the world.
We cannot carry on when we are expected to compete with cheap imports that come in and are sold below our production cost.
The growers explained to Mr. Bell that in 1990 the provincial agriculture budget was $110 million. It was cut to as low as $44 million and is now around $67 million. Mr. Bell said that not all ministries had budget increases and that he would send us copies of the budgets for different ministries.
To date we have received nothing.
In July 2005, minister Bell said he would have the federal-provincial Canadian Agricultural Income Stabilization program fixed in 30 days. Why is this program still not helping the financial situation of fruit growers?
We are in the second year of total price collapse. There is no money, growers have cut back as much as they can and this could greatly impact fruit quality.
Why does B.C. have the lowest agricultural budget proportional to the provincial GDP in Canada?…
Mr. Bell has not taken responsibility. We need funding now to save the tree fruit industry.
Our son is leaving the farm this fall after harvest to seek a new career, after horticultural training at college and investing 10 years on the farm. Planning farm succession is not going to be an option for our third-generation orchard.
– Brian Witzke,
Kelowna, B.C.
Smell smoke
There is a master plan unfolding regarding the continued existence of the Canadian Wheat Board. It is a plan breathtaking in its simplicity, and is being carried out with military precision. In its essence, it is a plan of encirclement and strangulation.
The plan calls for the CWB and its supporters to be bypassed and rendered irrelevant, while its opponents build an edifice to take its place.
The promise the Conservatives made in the election campaign was the opening shot. Then came the meeting this summer in Saskatoon, where none but opponents of the CWB were welcome.
Now a development has taken place that not only demonstrates Conservative dislike of the CWB, but outright contempt. In the midst of CWB elections of directors, the government has appointed a raucous opponent of the CWB, farmer Ken Motiuk, a direct and contemptuous slap at the present structure of the CWB. On top of that, the government has now appointed a task force, to paint a mural to the government’s liking, showing grain marketing post-CWB. …
Is all this activity to create a so-called dual market an effort to placate and reward raggedy-ass complainers like the Western Canadian Wheat Growers Association and others like them? Or are there much larger and more sinister forms in these troubled waters?
Did this plan spring full-blown from the massive dome of Stephen Harper, or was it hatched for him in some luxurious paneled boardroom of a transnational grain company in the good old U.S.A.?
This smacks of the Machiavellian cleverness of some high priced corporate lawyer. The CWB and its supporters are like an encircled army being slowly crushed. …
From the beginning of this exercise, agriculture minister Chuck Strahl has been challenged to hold a plebiscite to get the view of farmers. This he has refused to do, always with the little sop that “he has not ruled it out.”
This will continue until we are so far down the road that going forward is inevitable, going back unthinkable. What is the purpose behind this entire exercise?…
Deep integration is a mantra of at least some in the Bush administration. They see Canada as becoming more and more an extension of the U.S.
Among other pressures from Washington, has the Harper government received the directive, “get rid of the CWB”? Whatever the truth of that, it is evident that the government has a plan.
It is equally evident that the CWB and its supporters do not. Time is short.
– John Beckham,
Winnipeg, Man.
Bad rubbish
We just heard on the news that our premier (Ralph) Klein has spent $1 million to undermine the CWB with his stupid choice thing that doesn’t mean a thing and makes no sense whatsoever.
He obviously is being paid off, likely by the big grain companies and United States. … Apparently it’s the NDP who has brought this to light and if you people would investigate your stories better. I’ve wondered for so long at how in the world does this bullshit go on and on and in a farmers’ paper to boot. I expect to see the truth of this to be exposed and on the front page so our prime minister can also be exposed for so solidly backing that darn Klein. …
That Western Canadian Wheat Growers Association is a phony organization for sure and I’ll bet Klein’s government is paying them well to be so against the CWB.
The CWB isn’t broken. It’s working very well, so don’t monkey around with it.
– Rose Bohush,
Sherwood Park, Alta.
