Response to Strahl
To the Editor:
I would like to take this opportunity to set the record straight on a number of statements that the Honourable Chuck Strahl made in a letter that he is circulating to various local papers.
In his letter he makes a number of statements regarding the proposed changes to Canadian Wheat Board barley marketing system.
First, I take issue with Minister Strahl’s comment that 62 percent of producers “want the freedom to market barley in whatever way they want.” He continues to misinterpret the confusing three question vote by stating that the 48 percent of producers who voted for the second question as supporting the end of the CWB single-desk.
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Many of these voters were more likely voting for additional options within a CWB single desk framework and for the continued ability to market feed barley in Canada outside the CWB single desk. A plebiscite in Manitoba and a poll in Saskatchewan show that when farmers are asked for a clear choice between the CWB single desk and the open market, a majority chose the CWB single desk.
Minister Strahl criticizes the court challenge by the Friends of the Canadian Wheat Board and the financial support of $50,000 given to this group by the Manitoba and Saskatchewan governments. The government of Saskatchewan is giving support to this group because we believe that the process that the federal government is using to make changes to the barley market is not only illegal, but will cost western barley producers money.
Since the summer of 2006, the federal government: has imposed a gag order on the CWB so that it can’t defend itself; has appointed anti-CWB individuals to the CWB board of directors; has fired the well respected CEO of the CWB; and has carried out a flawed plebiscite with biased questions on the ballot.
The federal government is now attempting to bypass Parliament and introduce changes to barley marketing through regulations.
This is the reason why the government of Saskatchewan is supporting this court challenge.
The blame for the costs associated with the court challenges rests solely with Minister Strahl and the federal government. …
I have asked Minister Strahl on several occasions to release federal analysis and studies showing that farmers would be better off without the single desk. Again, Minister Strahl, where are the studies and analysis to back up your claim?
– Mark Wartman,
Sask. Minister of Agriculture,
Regina, Sask.
It’s my grain
To the Editor:
In response to Mr. Stewart Wells “Democracy Day”Ê(WP, June 21), western Canadian barley growers had their democracy day when over 60 percent of farmers decided that the CWB was no longer the best marketing option for our barley.
We were allowed a vote. That vote was not to abolish the CWB but to have a dual marketing system ÊIf even the notion of a dual marketing system is so bad, then why are we seeing the highest barley prices in years with the highest Canadian dollar?
If the dual marketing system is so bad, should we not see the opposite? Does it not seem to be a coincidence that barley prices have risen practically overnight as a result of the plebiscite?Ê
The CWB has long been unaccountable for their prices and their actions in which they spend our money. I do not believe that the CWB gets me the best price for my grain and I don’t appreciate others making me sell my grain to them when I don’t want to.Ê
The future of the state of farming is in the most bleak state that it has ever been in, especially in northeast Saskatchewan, and the CWB has taken absolute zero responsibility in an industry (in) which they had considerable control. We can’t ignore the facts any longer. The largest farming debt ever, the average age of a farmer is 52, rural communities are dying and becoming non-existent, people have to live up to 14 hours away from their family to support the farm from another income source….
As a young 26-year-old farmer, I am sick of having to work in the Alberta oilfield and abroad to support the family farm in Saskatchewan.
I want to make a difference.ÊI am angeredÊby the fact thatÊa few select farmers think they are going to force me to sell my grain to a single source regardless of whether it is a better price or not.
I am a Canadian and do not endorse socialism. For the Friends of the CWB, socialism is a system or condition of society in which the means of production are owned and controlledÊby the state.
My grain is my grain and I will do whatever I see fit.ÊIf the Friends of the CWB are wanting a fight, they are going to find themselves in a fight with myself and any others who want the dual marketing system. And maybe we should call for some funding from the governments of the prairie provinces as well.
– Patrick Keller,
Nut Mountain, Sask.
It’s a battle
To the Editor:
(Federal agriculture) minister (Chuck) Strahl’s letter against the Friends of the Canadian Wheat Board court challenge inspired me, but not likely in a direction the minister had hoped.
Thanks to him, this cattleman who neither grows nor uses barley will contribute to the Friends of the Canadian Wheat Board to aid them in their court battle.
Mr. Strahl’s letter contained many misleading statements that need challenging.
I am not sure of the hue and cry that he is referring to when he claims that western barley farmers have been calling to have barley removed from the wheat board.
What I am sure of is that his boss, Mr. Harper, as a Reform party policy maker, ignored grassroot support of both the CWB and marketing boards in 1991, setting the agenda for their dismantling.
His predecessor, Mr. Mulroney, removed oats from the wheat board in 1989 with the same promise of free market prices for oats. As an oat producer at the time, it took little time to realize that the free market price oats was a losing cause contrary to Conservative claims. …
Minister Strahl suggests “62 percent of farmers voted for freedom to market barley in whatever way they want,” deliberately ignoring the “keep the CWB as well” middle option of the intentionally misleading plebiscite – an option even Conservative-appointed CWB directors contend is unviable.
The minister chose not to mention the bizarre voting process. With its identifiable numbered ballots, secret voters lists and vote early and vote often advantage for some, the banana republic style barley vote is an affront to all Canadians. It does not bode well for democracy under Canada’s “new” government.Minister Strahl cries foul, saying that his government is moving to put money into farmers’ pockets, while the friends of the Canadian Wheat Board along with the Manitoba and Saskatchewan governments are taking from farmers.
Blatantly untrue. Minister Strahl and his government are being taken to task for breaking the law.
Minister Strahl complains taxpayer dollars are being spent to fight a court challenge from both of the provinces as well as funding the defence of Canada’s “new” government.
He ignores the more than a million dollars the Alberta government spent on misleading and inappropriate anti-CWB advertising. Nor did he mention the federal dollars he spent replacing Mr. Measner, arranging stacked closed-door “consultations” and operating his contrived plebiscite….
The minister seems to think that deceiving farmers and pitting them against one another is easy, because it is his party’s modus operandi. I think in the next election he will find out he is mistaken….
– Neil Peacock,
Sexsmith, Alta.
Check for yourself
To the Editor:
In the June 28 issue of The Western Producer, a CWB official flippantly dismisses an analysis by Rolf Penner of the Frontier Centre (for Public Policy) in which he shows that CWB spring wheat returns are well below prices received by farmers at U.S. elevators for wheat of comparable quality.
On June 14, the farmgate return under the CWB’s fixed price contract at Boissevain, Man., for No. 1 CWRS 13.5 percent was $1 per bushel below the spot price at a U.S. elevator just across the border. At the time, the CWB’s 2007-08 pool return outlook was $1.88 per bu. below the U.S. spot price, although with the latest PRO released on June 28, this difference has been reduced to $1.38 per bu.
While we recognize the PRO represents a projected pooled return from sales over a year, why are the CWB’s fixed and daily price contracts so much below U.S. spot values?
The CWB always boasts about its ability to earn premiums. If that’s the case, then shouldn’t we be getting higher prices than U.S. farmers who live under an open market?
If an open market is truly a “race to the bottom,” as CWB supporters claim, then why do U.S. wheat farmers consistently get higher market prices?
I urge Canadian farmers not to take our word for it, nor to take the word of the Frontier Centre. Check it out for yourself.
Call several U.S. elevators or better yet, take a sample of your wheat to a U.S. elevator, find out what it’s worth and then compare this to what the CWB is offering.
It doesn’t matter if you compare the U.S. price to the CWB’s fixed, daily or pooled price. You will invariably find that the open market will pay you more, and often substantially more.
Non-farmers in Canada are free to sell their property to whomever they like. A prairie farmer should have the same right, particularly when the evidence shows that forced collectivization is costing each farmer thousands of dollars every year.
– Blair Rutter,
Executive Director,
Western Canadian Wheat
Growers Association,
Winnipeg, Man.
12% less
To the Editor:
With the so-called new AgriInvest (program), farmers contribute 1.5 percent and governments match it with 1.5 percent within a year, which equals three percent yearly into a farmer’s account, which now has farmers paying a premium/bill 1.5 percent more towards their own farm crisis.
Most farmers, if not all, need financial support each year and with AgriInvest in place, the old Canadian Agricultural Income Stabilization program, now called AgriStability, will no longer cover the first 15 percent of a farmer’s margin loss within the same year.
So, doing the math, 15 percent less coverage in CAIS and three percent in NISA (Net Income Stabilization Account) equals minus 12 percent reduction in support dollars by both governments to every farmer.
Governments just shorted farmers by another 12 percent per year.
This is ridiculous and purposely planned by governments to cut agriculture funding and drive numerous more farmers into bankruptcy….
Canada’s farm programs just took another big leap backwards, back to the stone ages of a dysfunctional, non-triggering AIDA (Agricultural Income Disaster Assistance) program.
But then why wouldn’t it? We still have the same old bureaucrats in place, both in Ottawa and in my province, with the same provincial government in my province who continue to push, sign on to and sell this crap.
It’s time to clean house of the old bureaucrats in Ottawa and my province, and time to clean house of my provincial government. Maybe then our country and province could employ or have some new thinkers with new ideas, instead of being fed the same old agriculture crap year after year.
It’s why Canada has a serious farm crisis.
– Lloyd Pletz,
Regina, Sask.
