Gag order
Just a few weeks ago (prime minister Stephen) Harper’s agriculture minister imposed a permanent gag order on the Canadian Wheat Board.
The minister’s order restricts the freedom of speech of the most significant commercial organization western Canadian grain farmers control. Treating the farmers’ wheat board like a terrorist organization is a very serious affront to the civil liberties of all Canadians.
The CWB is not even a crown corporation. It is 100 percent funded by farmers and is controlled by its farmer-elected directors. Will a future government use this precedent to gag another federally chartered corporation or organization it does not like? The CBC and income trusts both come to mind.
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Downturn in grain farm economics threatens to be long term
We might look back at this fall as the turning point in grain farm economics — the point where making money became really difficult.
Now the Harper clan is at it again. This time they have bent the bureaucracy of Agriculture Canada and had them issue a propaganda statement against the CWB over the minister’s signature. It would take too much space to list all the things Ag Canada’s propagandists get wrong about the value of the CWB to farmers.
Of course Harper’s attack on the CWB is not about farmers. It is about making the world safe for American railway and grain company profits – profits that must come from farmers’ pockets.
The Harper regime’s willingness to take away basic rights and pervert the bureaucracy to the political ends of the Conservative party is dangerous. Canadians have a right to expect serious and objective information from the bureaucracy, not Conservative propaganda and disinformation.
This is very ugly and smacks of the worst of east European politics before the fall of the wall.
– Ken Larsen,
Benalto, Alta.
Clean it up
All the federal political parties have turned tail upon introducing stiff Canadian laws governing the pollution that has developed within Canada. Rona Ambrose, our Conservative minister of the environment, was on the right track in proposing a made-in-Canada clean air bill.
This person was elected and handed a portfolio to set a standard that would last for years to come by introducing this important bill only to have her own party, linked with the NDP, shred her much-needed bill as a start upon cleaning up the pollution causing rampant citizen health problems, something the hated, watered-down Kyoto protocol would not do.
We elect political representatives to make Canada a cleaner, safer and more cost-efficient country while controlling the environment, the very backbone of a more healthy society. …
We must take the first step by taking control of downsizing our own everyday waste-causing pollution. Please bend over and pick up a scrap of garbage. Don’t walk past it, leaving it to enter our water systems, your future drinking water. And for goodness sake to the big industries and farm and ranch businesses, please do your part starting today.
– Ron Cox,
Lloydminster, Sask.
Poor ag minister
Never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined that the Conservatives we supported would in short order turn into an arrogant and contemptuous dictatorship.
Prime minister Harper couldn’t have made a worse choice for ag minister. Instead of dealing with the shoddy service performance of the railway in getting grain to export position, he prefers to destroy the marketing system farmers have fought for.
There is an ominous silence from (federal agriculture minister Chuck) Strahl, (MP David) Anderson and company about Ralph Klein’s million-dollar ad campaign with Alberta taxpayer money to destroy our wheat board. Where was the taxpayers federation on this one?
It is obvious that Strahl has never considered the overall consequences of eliminating the farmers’ marketing arm.
Why has he shown no concern about the future of short line railways, producer loading cars or the Canadian Grain Commission or marketing development?
Farmers are questioning who is running the agriculture department. Is it Anderson or Strahl or is it our prime minister selling us out to George Bush?
If the Conservatives ever want to elect another member in the West, they would do well to replace the present personnel in the agriculture department forthwith. The damage they have inflicted on their credibility will certainly show up in the next election. When can we expect something positive?
– Barb Dwyer,
Lloydminster, Sask.
Facts & powers
I take issue with the letter by William Dascavich in your Nov. 2 paper. Some of the points he makes should be examined further. The year 1935 is brought up time after time by single desk supporters. That was smack in the middle of the great depression. No one could afford to pay for anything.
Why doesn’t anyone talk about 1943, when the world price of wheat was approximately $1 per bushel higher than the price the federal government agreed to supply wheat to England? Farmers would not deliver to the CWB at those prices so the government used the War Measures Act to make the CWB compulsory.
How about 1952, when this legislation expired? The feds passed new legislation to continue their control of grain prices.
Another claim made in the letter was that because of lobbying by “international grain merchants,” the board has been stripped of many powers that enabled it to do a better job.
What powers? Give us some examples of the powers that were stripped from the CWB.
Your Oct. 26 issue printed a letter from Dwight Pomedli. He mentions “retired CWB farmers writing fear mongering letters.” Need I say more?
– Roger Brandl,
Fort St. John, B.C.
Hog cost
With steadily growing opposition and mounting evidence of pollution to the water sources, the Manitoba government has decided to impose a temporary moratorium on further hog barn expansion and new development.
The government has come to the realization that they cannot just treat the symptoms, they must deal with and eliminate the causes.
Sooner or later, there will be one very important question that will need to be addressed: what is the cost and sacrifice of being the number one hog producing province in Canada?
– John Fefchak,
Virden, Man.
Gravel & gophers
Following the activities at the Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities convention last week, I am pressed to express my dismay at their inability to provide rural leadership in this province. I believe SARM has lost all credibility to be involved in any future agriculture policy discussions.
The orchestrated, behind the scenes activities that saw SARM turn an 85 percent plus vote in support of the Canadian Wheat Board into a resolution that neutered their voice on this issue confirms for me that this organization must stick to gravel and gophers and stay out of the policy arena.
The previous day they had listened but obviously didn’t hear a debating session regarding the CWB. SARM’s position has pulled them away from common sense and the CWB’s numerous, proven benefits to farmers and placed them squarely on the side of no-sense and no credible business plan alternative.
Those who got up to the microphone to express the opinion that they were prepared to pull their RM out if SARM didn’t remain neutral can never win an argument with me that they acted in the best interest of farmers, their rural communities or this province. Such antics surely were learned in a particular political rank that similarly doesn’t believe in democracy and thinks they can get their way by bullying.
I’m certain that many who voted for this neutral resolution did so because they didn’t want their organization to crumble. Unfortunately, there is never a neutral position. This non-position is a negative no matter how they painted it for delegates.
Now I can only hope that these RMs will be identified to their constituents and their farmer members will deal with them appropriately.
In the meantime I believe that SARM should be removed from all farm policy discussions. Save us the money spent on such charades. As quickly as possible the government should proceed with municipal amalgamation and save a lot of tax dollars for farmers who deserved better from our elected executive officials at this SARM convention. Gravel and gophers can surely be handled in a less expensive structure.
– Lil Sabiston,
Kelliher, Sask.
Step by step
Those farmers who thought it was ridiculous to suggest that the Canadian grain industry could eventually be controlled by a few U.S. multinationals should take a second look. The only surprise is that it is happening much faster than many anticipated.
The heavy handed Chuck Strahl has started to gut the Canadian Wheat Board with hostile and self serving appointments who are obviously looking down the road for big financial rewards from the corporate sector at the expense of farmers.
It is no coincidence, then, that Saskatchewan Wheat Pool is attempting to take over Agricore United.
How convenient of Sask Pool, whose main marketing arm is Toepfer, which is owned by Archer Daniels Midland, a huge U.S. multinational grain company. …This merger would obviously be a win-win for ADM who then could, along with companies like Cargill and Louis Dreyfus, proceed in the step by step takeover of the wheat board monopoly.
Then of course they would divide up the profits from such market power between themselves and leave the farmers who are their main source of their wealth, dead last.
Our two national railways are a perfect model and example of such market power.
This is why it is so extremely important for farmers to vote for their single desk candidates in the CWB election to make sure farmers, and not grain companies are in control….
– Wilfred “Butch” Harder,
Lowe Farm, Man.
What next?
I am a 49-year-old farmer who has been put in an impossible position not completely of my own making.
I have tried every program imaginable from the federal farm renewal program down. I have talked to ag reps, ag specialists, counsellors, accountants and many more. Each and every one has told me the same: you can’t “sharpen your pencil sharp enough” to make a living doing what you do, there is nothing out there for you and you need to sell your farm before you use all your equity up.
This is great in theory but then what? This brings me to the other part of the problem: with the Grade 8 education I have, where do I find a job? The education system in the 1970s labeled me “stupid.” I was not a troubled child nor did I cause trouble. A group of my peers and I were labeled “stupid” and after Grade 8 we were sent to a program that taught us to make candles, bird feeders and develop black and white film. All interesting sidelines but not really skills employers are looking for.
We were kept there until we were 16 and then given the boot.
The unanswered question I ask every adviser that has told me to sell, what do I do next? Who is willing to employ a 49-year-old male with a Grade 8 education?
I do not have enough equity to retire but I am basically unemployable. I cannot go on social welfare because I have equity but also can’t make enough money to make a living.
My farm turned 103 years old this year. My great-grandparents, grandparents and parents all raised a family on our family farm. In 2006 the farm cannot produce enough to make a living.
Agriculture is in desperate times. Producers of food that every living being needs to stay alive can’t earn a living doing their job. When was the last time a doctor, lawyer or teacher was forced to take an after hours job to put food on the table for their family?
Every day many farmers are being forced out of their job because their job doesn’t pay them enough to make a living. Big corporations are taking over these family farms and in the near future their shareholders are going to require a return for their investment.
Then watch out for prices in the stores to go nuts.
– Ross Fischer,
Perdue, Sask.
Divide and conquer
The Canadian Wheat Board monopoly for as long as I can remember has been a distraction that divides western Canadian farmers.
In your editorial of Oct. 12, you wrote about distractions hurting agriculture goals. The CWB monopoly is a huge distraction that divides farmers and doesn’t let the farm groups sit down and solve the real problems of agriculture economics in Canada.
The monopoly has been around for 60 years now and the farming community seems to continually be in the state of financial duress. Why not try something else – a free market.
Past and present governments love it because it keeps farmers in constant disagreement and at odds with each other on this major issue, and we can’t agree on anything, thus the government sits and does nothing.
The monopoly issue is more a philosophical view than an economic view, because both sides of the issue have and will come up with studies to show that their point of view will give farmers the best economic return for their wheat and barley.
When it comes to open market crops, Canadian companies do a very good job of competing with the United States in cash prices for export and domestic processing, and when given incentive, have responded very well by increasing domestic crush capacity and processing of specialty crops.
I am very confident that when CWB grains become open market cash crops, our Canadian companies will compete with the Americans quite nicely and that we could even see American wheat trying to enter Canada to access higher cash prices, the same as some special crops.
Not having a monopoly will not be nearly as dramatic as one thinks, because now CWB grains will also turn into cash crops. This will relieve the pressure on special crops and the canola cash price and basis.
Wheat acres and exports have been dropping for years, because farmers are trying to grow any crop but wheat for cash flow reasons.
The fear mongering has and will reach hysterical proportions, but if any farmer believes that growing wheat and barley in Western Canada is so economically fragile, that the industry will collapse if the CWB loses its monopoly, then that individual should be phoning the auctioneer. The first one out will be the winner.
We now have a federal government who is willing to end this long standing controversy over the CWB monopoly, which will give farmers the opportunity to get together and agree on many other important issues and here we are criticizing them for having the courage to finally do it. …
– Delory Nestibo,
Deloraine, Man.
Sacred cow
The Canadian Wheat Board and its supporters consider it to be a sacred cow, completely untouchable in every way. Why are some farmers so afraid of a more open system? Are they worried the price of wheat will drop?
There were some advantages to the CWB in the past when marketing information was very limited to the farmer.
We have access to much information and I believe a dual market system would work.
The CWB was dual market from July 1935 to September 1943, and was still in operation, contrary to what many would like you to believe would happen without a monopoly….
It has been 63 years and the price control of wheat still seems to be working.
Unfortunately the CWB has also made most value-added grain businesses in Western Canada, unprofitable.
Western Canadian farmers should be free to make marketing choices. Those choices may still include the CWB.
If the board is the best way to market grain, the CWB and its supporters have nothing to worry about in a dual system. They will get all the grain.
– Grant Giraudier,
Bengough, Sask.
Anderson problem?
What is Cypress Hills-Grasslands MP David Anderson’s problem? On Sept. 23, Anderson sent a letter to Senator Joseph Day, (Senate Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs) stating that he wanted to clarify information given to the committee by Ken Ritter, chair of the Canadian Wheat Board, as to why the CWB should be exempt from the Access to Information provisions of the Federal Accountability Act.
In his letter, Anderson stated “very little information is in fact accessible in terms of the workings of the board. Producers perceive the CWB to be more secretive and inaccessible than the RCMP or CSIS (Canadian Security Intelligence Service).”
This is completely asinine, especially when just 18 days later, Chuck Strahl, federal minister of agriculture and minister for the CWB, issued a gag order on the CWB, prohibiting them from giving out any information on single desk selling.
For some reason, Anderson failed to advise the committee of the Kraft-Furtan-Tyrchniewicz report (1996), which states that “the CWB earned farmers $13.35 a tonne more for wheat over a 14 year period than multiple sellers would have,” or of the Schmitz, Gray, Storey report (1997), which stated that barley producers received an annual benefit of $72 million due to the CWB.
He also failed to mention that five University of Saskatchewan agriculture economists (Storey, Rosaasen, Fulton, Gray and Vercammen) completely rejected the Western Grains Marketing Panel recommendations for dual marketing. All of these individuals had access to CWB documents. So, I repeat, what is Anderson’s problem?…
– Joyce Neufeld,
Waldeck, Sask.
Changed mind
Re: Why I support the Canadian Wheat Board.
I am a farmer in High Level, Alta., and I would like to make my voice heard in the ongoing debate over the viability of the CWB.
When I returned to Canada in the year 2000 after 10 years in the United States, I heard about the CWB and was told how it restricted trade, choice and so forth. I was new to farming and cursory examination of this institution revealed that “clearly” it was counter to what I had been doing for most of my adult life (i.e. trading free markets and advising corporations of the same.)
When my local grain elevator told me the same thing, I was firmly resolved to follow what information I had amassed, vote out the existing directors, and get the CWB out of what I perceived to be its wartime control mentality. I even wrote my local director, Art Macklin, a couple of stiffly worded memos, to which he replied in a very civil manner. Then something happened.
I attended a local meeting at which Art and a fairly senior member of his finance team from Winnipeg attended. One of the things I can do, and do well in my mind, is to listen to people, even those I disagree with, and see what they have to say.
I listened to the finance man talk for a while and then heard Art. He spoke about how the CWB increases efficiency in overseas sales via deliveries and pricing mechanisms and mentioned facts and figures to back this up.
With my finance background, I finally saw what he was getting at and when I cornered him after the meeting, he told me more along these lines.
OK, I can admit when I am wrong…. After that meeting, I had to find a way to support what the CWB was doing and I am doing that to this day.
The lessons from this should be clear. The CWB clearly has a winning program with overseas sales, and this is speaking as a commodities and foreign exchange professional. This is their strong point and must be understood.
Farmers in Alberta who have operations distant from the U.S. border will also be placed at a disadvantage. I certainly cannot market my grain in Montana, whereas someone in the Lethbridge area can. Why should a southern Alberta farmer have a better chance to market his product than I do? Why should he benefit disproportionately from a proposed dissolution of the CWB?
Perhaps one can say that I was someone who had firm ideas about the CWB but that it changed when it became clear that I was wrong. …
Please understand this: there is strength in numbers and no possibility that small individual odd-lotters can prevail over the longer term. We shall certainly hang separately if we cannot work together to market our product.
In all markets I have traded in over many years, I can say that small producers will not get the same price as a major single seller such as the CWB. They can’t. Think of the paperwork for the 1,000 small sellers versus one large one. This must be translated into lower prices for the producer. How can it not?
People, in my experience, do not seem to understand the math. They must do so or will suffer some rather drastic consequences in the years ahead.
– Gerry Agnew,
High Level, Alta.
