Harper promises
Just how gullible does Stephen Harper think we are? Remember how things would be better for us if we elected Harper (re) the equalization issue?
Do you remember too how tax on gas would be removed once it reached a threshold price should we elect Harper and his friends?
Well, here we are in 2008 and the price of gas has far surpassed what Harper talked about over two years ago.
Here we are in the midst of planting crops and doing what we do to find the price of gas has soared well above the threshold Harper and his cronies talked about. I’m sick and tired of how we are treated knowing the government is making more and more money at the pumps because GST is a percentage tax on what is purchased.
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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?
So much for promises, in my mind.
Remember the announcement on how Harper would help rebuild Exhibition Park (Ipsco Place) in Regina? Here we are in the midst of construction season and now Tom Lukiwski, one of Harper’s cronies, tells us how the matter has to be approved by the Treasury Board.
Was it not Tom Lukiwski who told us these other stories too? Sure, the money will likely come once Treasury approves, but what irks me is the fact these MPs should not have blown their horns until everything was in place.
I guess this is too much to expect, right? I mean we pay these people over $100,000 a year.
I dare think they should or would know.
– Tom Brewer,
Regina, Sask.
Fair trade
Forrest Gump’s momma had it right. Life’s like a box of chocolates. You don’t know what you’re getting. Those truffles look and taste yummy, but most of us are totally unaware of the exploitive conditions under which 99 percent of the world’s cocoa is made.
Volatile markets and poor credit mean low wages for cocoa growers in the developing world. Many are forced to send their children to work in the fields. Instead of reading, writing and arithmetic, these kids face pesticides, long hours in the hot sun and malnutrition….
Meanwhile, the coffers of multinational manufacturers like Nestlé and Hershey continue to be lined with profits from a highly lucrative product. Trading organizations and the chocolate industry receive a whopping 70 percent of the profit from chocolate, whereas farmers receive a paltry five percent.
How can we reconcile our love for chocolate with the unsavoury conditions of its production? The fair trade movement offers a solution by ensuring that cocoa is purchased from democratically organized co-operatives or larger plantations where workers can unionize and earn good wages.
Fair trade certification means environmentally sustainable production methods, and most important, that children aren’t forced to toil away to satisfy our sweet tooth.
– Susan Lewis Hammond,
Victoria, B.C.
Anderson defence
I’ve always been amazed at the many letters that have been published in this paper that criticize David Anderson, federal MP for the Cypress Hills-Grasslands constituency. Perhaps it’s time that we, the people, speak out, as we are indeed the ones who elected him.
I write as a citizen of his constituency and as supporter of the Conservative Party of Canada.
In the last federal election, Dave swept the polls with 66 percent of the popular vote, and 14,000 votes over and above his opponents.
This constituency is made up largely of people who are farmers and ranchers, including David Anderson and his family. If they’re not farming, they have a relative who is connected to the agriculture industry in one form or another. In the western half of the constituency, many families are employed in the oil fields.
I doubt that the barrage of negative statements and false predictions against Mr. Anderson that have appeared in the Open Forum section of this paper will have swayed the voters of this constituency.
If anything, they’ve reinforced our common belief that past NDP and Liberal governments were working directly against our interests. If we elected Dave, it was for positive change.
The outlook for the future is better than ever. Grain prices are soaring, crude oil is in demand and Stephane Dion’s proposed carbon tax that is directly aimed at Western Canada’s oil industry will undoubtedly transform into a future victory for Anderson.
– John Hamon,
Gravelbourg,
About meetings
I read with interest Lloyd Pletz’s letter to the editor (May 8.) (MP Garry) Breitkreuz’s meeting is not the only farce that the Conservatives have run in this manner.
Just to mention a few of the other controlled agendas: agriculture ministers say they are consulting farmers. They only consult the farm groups that the government itself is pumping money into their pockets.
The feds held closed door meeting in Saskatoon, all anti wheat board people invited. The feds put gag order in place so our Canadian Wheat Board elected directors could not speak about the merits of the CWB.
The feds fired Adrian Measner for standing up for the mandate of CWB, that being single desk marketing. … The feds’ misleading barley plebiscite was handled worse than a Third World election. There was no voters list, and from the previous voters list 16,000 names were removed during the director elections.
The feds say they are ending the single desk for farmers, but who’s lobbying the government? It’s grain companies, brokers, etc….
Farmers should be deciding the future of the CWB, not politicians and not farm groups financed by the government with taxpayer’s dollars.
– David Bailey,
Saskatoon, Sask.
CWB saviour
… The people who want to crush the CWB haven’t got a clue what it would be like without it.
The CWB has been a saviour for farmers. What would we do without farmers? We’d get pretty hungry if there was no flour, meat or milk.
Last time I bought a 10 kilogram bag of flour it cost $12.99. How much did the farmer get? I checked at other stores and flour was the same price.
… Having been an active farm wife for many years, I know what a farmer’s life is like.
I say to (MP David) Anderson and (federal agriculture minister Gerry) Ritz, problems are only solved by discussing them fairly and without being a bully.
– Eda Satre,
Westerose, Alta.
Feckless idea
Barry Wilson’s eulogy for the federal bureaucrat Arthur Kroeger (“No statue planned for architect of Crow demise”, WP, May 15) is an understatement.
Certainly those of us who had the misfortune to deal with the late Mr. Kroeger were aware of his condescending religious fervor when it came to parroting the more idiotic notions of globalization, including the economically naïve idea that the possibilities for value adding on the Prairies were boundless if only the Crow agreement was eliminated and free enterprise, like Jimmy Hoffa coming home for supper, was allowed to work.
Along with his feckless Liberal masters, Mr. Kroeger managed to set in motion the forces that destroyed the largest, most energy efficient grain collecting and handling system on the planet.
With the help of the Alberta government, their actions led to the destruction of the prairie pools and the abandonment of the branch rail line system not long after it had been upgraded at great public expense.
As Mr. Wilson notes, the only sector that benefited from this destruction was the monopoly railways. In light of global warming, higher fuel costs and future carbon taxes, this crippling of the economic potential of western grain farmers by Mr. Kroeger and his eager followers will take years to repair. In a real sense Mr. Kroeger and his thoughtless political masters truly pulled the last spike out of the prairie grain economy.
Like a zombie from the grave, his work continues with the abandonment of more branch lines, the destruction of the Canadian Grain Commission and the attacks on the Canadian Wheat Board.
It is a pity more farmers did not have the foresight to drive a stake through the heart of that whole movement.
– Ken Larsen,
Benalto, Alta.
