Go, Leafs, go
It has come to my attention in my 32 years of farming that the industry suffers from a chronic problem. The key link in the food chain seems to be the one forgotten. Look at the price of bread, the millers, the packagers, the wholesalers, the retailers, all get a fat slice of the figurative pie, while producers make do with the crumbs left over.
Alas, life is full of inequities and the past three Stanley Cup finals brought that to light. In 2004, we saw the feverish Calgary Flames fans fill the 20,000 seat Saddledome, not just for home games but to watch their heroes play in Florida on the huge jumbotron.
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Crop profitability looks grim in new outlook
With grain prices depressed, returns per acre are looking dismal on all the major crops with some significantly worse than others.
Meanwhile, the average person walking the streets of Tampa Bay was unaware a hockey game was being played blocks away and that their Lightning won it all.
After a one year player strike, the 2006 Edmonton Oilers made it to the final round. How appropriate that the cup go back to the “city of champions,” the home of Gretzky and company.
But once again, the cup eluded Canada, heading to a city named Raleigh. My atlas shows its situated in the centre of North Carolina. But there’s nothing northerly about it, being in the American deep south, where hockey is more of a curiosity than a sport.
Finally, what could have been more fitting than to see the 2007 Ottawa Senators and their long-suffering fans, heartbroken from so many past playoff disappointments, celebrate with a victory parade past Parliament Hill, bonding our country for a change?
Instead, the city of Anaheim, California, hoists the cup, where hockey is so important they name their team after a B grade Walt Disney movie….
Perhaps next year my beloved Toronto Maple Leafs will finally sip from Lord Stanley’s chalice, after a 40 year drought.
Then again, after so many years of dismal grain prices, wheat might sell for $10 bushel in 2008. So farmers, take heart, stranger things have happened.
Remember the 1972 Summit Series? We became accustomed to strange and terrifying names like Mikhailov, Yakashev and Tretiak. For 22 days that September, they became our most hated enemies.
Now, decades later, the sons of those soldiers on skates play for our favourite teams and we cheer on names like Bure, Ovechkin and Kovalchuk.
As I said, stranger things have happened. Go. Leafs, go!
– Les Zeller,
Golden Prairie, Sask.
Quite obvious
It’s quite obvious why the Canadian malting industry is upset over the federal government’s decision to give farmers an open market alternative to marketing their malt and feed barley as of Aug 1.
Of course if you had half a million tonnes of malt barley booked at prices far below market value, what other position would you take?
Maybe a question to consider is why the Canadian Wheat Board sold that barley at those low prices in deferred positions in the first place. After all the U.S. corn market was being bulled by a tight supply/demand scenario caused mostly by huge increases in corn use for ethanol production and the Aussies and Europeans were looking at tight supplies of grains and oilseeds because of drought.
On top of that, the Canadian carryover for barley at the end of July 31, 2007, was also projected to be very tight.
I guess when you have a monopoly on sales, there isn’t much risk in selling forward under any market scenario at low value. After all, under a monopoly you can tell the farmer he can either take it or leave it.
Given this big tonnage, low priced barley, short position the CWB has with the Canadian malting industry, maybe western Canadian farmers should be asking themselves in whose interests the CWB is working.
– Cal Paul,
Winnipeg, Man.
Hands on
In recent months, several rural school closures have been announced. Willow Bunch and Limerick, Sask., are but two of the communities that have been affected. There are many more.
There is no doubt that money is the driving force behind the cutbacks. The NDP government of Lorne Calvert has refused to introduce a moratorium on any of the closures.
Both the communities of Willow Bunch and Limerick have proven to their school units that the tax revenue from their respective RMs and urban municipalities far exceed their school expense. That area has recently been the scene of a new kaolin processing plant. The schools are necessary if the region is to attract young families to small communities.
Many years ago I took a business course at a community college. The instructor was in Calgary, sitting in front of a camera. We were connected via satellite. We could ask questions and receive answers in the same way as a real classroom. We were all adults, thus discipline in the classroom wasn’t a problem.
I’m sure that a similar system could be developed for small towns and villages, where one teacher could serve many students and many schools. One or more parents could each take a week at a time to keep order in the class.
Other hands-on classes such as teaching kids how to drive a tractor, a combine or a bulldozer might be introduced. …
I believe it’s high time we restore our rural and western way of life.
– John Hamon,
Gravelbourg, Sask.
TB scare
The recent media flurry around the American jetsetter infected with extensively drug resistant tuberculosis brings home the global realities of major diseases and abject poverty.
TB still eliminates almost two million people from our world every year, as do AIDS and malaria. The poor are getting predictably more destitute while the billionaires are multiplying, tripling to 950 over the past decade. Their cumulative wealth reaches an astounding $3.5 trillion.
Latest studies reveal that, for the relatively small price tag of $175 billion, we could conquer most of the major maladies facing humankind. Many people I know gladly give 10 percent or more of their earnings philanthropically.
What a different world we would have if the very richest individuals shared even five percent and the wealthy OECD countries gave a meager 0.7 percent.
– Dr. Robert C. Dickson,
Calgary, Alta.
Sask. interests
There seems to be some confusion with respect to discussions taking place between the government of Canada and the government of Nova Scotia. Some have characterized it as a “negotiation” in an attempt to reach a “side deal” on the Atlantic Accords.
I would like to set the record straight for your readers:
First, our government will not negotiate side deals with any individual province or territory. You cannot run a country on side deals.
Second, this is not a negotiation. What we are doing is consulting with Nova Scotia about the implementation process and the benefits of Budget 2007 to determine the process of maintaining our guarantee that no province will be worse off under the new system.
Our government is not in the midst of making any side deals for a few extra votes. Equalization has been restored to a principles-based program for the first time in many years. That’s what all premiers asked us to do and that’s what all Canadians expect us to do.
Restoring fiscal balance brings federal support for Saskatchewan to $1.4 billion in 2007-08, including over $800 million in new funding. That’s more new funding, on a per capita basis, than any other province in the country.
Under the old Liberal equalization program, Saskatchewan would have received zero dollars this year; under Budget 2007’s new strengthened equalization, they will receive $226 million this year.
That’s $226 million more now than they had before to fund health care, education, roads and other important public services.
With new money for Saskatchewan farmers, new money for clear air and climate change, for reductions in patient wait times, for the establishment of the Canadian Police Research Centre, new money to combat cervical cancer and increased long-term funding for health care, social services and infrastructure, this is an excellent budget for your province.
And the people of Saskatchewan can rest assured that every decision we make will be made in the best interest of all Canadians, including the people of this province.
– Jim Flaherty,
Minister of Finance
Ottawa, Ont.
