Working together; Conflicting mandate; Ordinary Canadian; Eventful mail; We who voted; Gov’t. excused; Global warming
Working together
The Nov. 20 Western Producer carried a story entitled “Farmers unite against high prices.” Every farmer should read and take note of this article, which illustrates that by working together, farmers are able to access fertilizer at a much more reasonable cost than if they purchased it individually from North American suppliers.
Freedom has many facets. The freedom to sell wheat to whomever you choose does not mean that you will get the best price. Just as in the case of the purchase of fertilizer, individually farmers do not have the power to negotiate a fair price with large grain companies. They have to take what is offered.
Read Also
Topsy-turvy precipitation this year challenges crop predictions
Rainfall can vary dramatically over a short distance. Precipitation maps can’t catch all the deviations, but they do provide a broad perspective.
Instead of trying to destroy the Canadian Wheat Board, it would be better if all farmers directed their efforts into strengthening the CWB. By working together, farmers will have power in the marketplace.
Once the board is gone, farmers will lose the freedom to work together in a similar format. Without farmer bargaining power, the large grain companies will have the upper hand. Is that what farmers really want?
– Maurice Kostichuk,
Insinger, Sask.
Conflicting mandate
Re: “Bacon-style turkey bacon? CFIA has label dilemma,” (WP, Nov. 20.) This is yet another example of how the dual and conflicting mandate of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency – to protect consumers while promoting industry – renders the agency ineffectual and wastes taxpayers’ dollars.
To squander government time and energy debating such a trivial matter surely only serves the purpose of placating a paranoid segment of industry as opposed to protecting the public who, as ignorant as they might be about animal agriculture, should be able to figure out that something called “poultry bacon” comes from a bird and not a mammal.
The public has made it clear that food safety and animal welfare are issues of prime importance. The CFIA could address at least one of these by turning its attention to the convoluted, confusing and misleading labelling on egg cartons.
For instance, consumers would benefit from a simple explanation as to production practices; a label on all battery-produced eggs reading “eggs from caged hens.”
Now that would be a good use of resources.
– Debra Probert,
Executive Director,
Vancouver Humane Society,
Vancouver, B.C.
Ordinary Canadian
I have a question resulting from the economic and political turmoil occurring in this country. On the news this morning there is some indication that the government could fail and be replaced by a socialist coalition.
I work in the oil industry and it looks like I will be unemployed within a couple of weeks. Will Jack Layton and company prop up the oil industry with a large cash infusion of borrowed money so I can have a job?
Or does his generosity with other people’s money only apply to unionized workers such as the auto industry?
Perhaps because we do not belong to a union we are not “ordinary Canadians.”
There is a silver lining to all this, however. Maybe now western Canadians will realize that the only real solution is a new border on the east side of Manitoba.
– Lawrence Gutek,
Hendon, Sask.
Eventful mail
The last part of November has been an eventful one at our post office box in Kyle. One envelope was addressed to me from David Anderson, my member of Parliament in Ottawa.
The imminent CWB director elections were the subject of Mr. Anderson’s letter. He pointed out that “time was running out” and carefully demonstrated how to mark my ballot.
Mr. Anderson used the words freedom and choice several times in his letter. Buzzwords to stir one’s soul, of course. Mr. Anderson stated that our Conservative government believes I “deserve the freedom every other citizen takes for granted.”
The candidates Mr. Anderson promotes in the CWB director election want to end the CWB’s position as the single seller of premium Western Canadian Grain.
I fail to understand how we as producers of highly regarded Canadian grain can benefit while having any member of grain companies and others selling the same product to our customers.
Logic dictates the end user of the grain will buy from the seller for the cheapest price they are able to negotiate. We need to retain the CWB as the single seller of our grain.
Mr. Anderson was placed in Ottawa as our MP through a democratic process. These director elections are a democratic process for farmers to elect representation on the CWB board of directors.
I believe it is unethical of Mr. Anderson to use his resources as my MP to make a last minute pitch to influence farmers in a democratic process.
– Ron W. Smith,
Kyle, Sask.
We who voted
Canada’s voters voted democratically last federal election calling for and democratically electing a Conservative minority government to best govern and control Canada’s affairs. We, the people, have spoken democratically.
Not one voter in Canada voted in favour of a coalition government made up of opposition MPs or their losing parties. We, the people, went to the polls to vote to keep these parties out of power.
Everyone wonders why the voter turnout was so low last election. Here is the reason: when we see, recognize and witnessed over the last number of years all of the political crap that goes on within our federal Parliament in Ottawa, and Canada’s political undemocratic crap pile just got bigger.
I’m ashamed to even be living here in undemocratic Canada at this moment.
– Lloyd Pletz,
Regina, Sask.
Gov’t. excused
Last week’s (Nov. 27) editorial, “Rife suspicion harms the process,” probably would not have been necessary if the Western Producer had been holding Conservative MPs to account for their anti-CWB actions over the past three years.
The editorial closing of “… the way forward is to accept the will of the voters when the results are tallied” again excuses the Conservative government for police-state tactics like removing thousands of permit book holders from the voters’ list while continuing to force those same farmers to pay for an election in which they can’t vote.
The editorial would have fit nicely into papers in 1935 England and Germany: “if we just look the other way, we can accept the will of the voters and everything will be OK.”
It is fitting that on the same day the editorial was published, the news surfaced that Conservative MPs have used taxpayer money to interfere directly in the CWB elections by sending tax-paid letters to farmers telling them how to vote for anti-CWB candidates.
If the Western Producer, Keystone Agricultural Producers, Agricultural Producers Association of Saskatchewan, Wild Rose Agricultural Producers and Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities would have stood up for democracy over the past three years, the Conservative MPs would not have dared to interfere directly with taxpayer money.
Will the Western Producer now continue to excuse the government and become irrelevant like the others?
– Ron Watson,
Lancer, Sask.
Global warming
Global warming isn’t the problem. It is a symptom of a larger problem. The problem is overpopulation.
The human population is growing by 80 million every year. That is a lot of additional mouths to feed. Until we do something about that, we will continue to clear land and burn millions of acres all around the world from the rain forests in the Amazon to the boreal forests of the North. …
Recycling aluminum cans and driving hybrid cars will make no real difference in the amount of energy that humans use to feed themselves…. Ironically our government takes pot shots at China’s human rights and environmental record when they are the only government in the world to have the courage to address the most serious threat to the planet today, overpopulation.
– Frank Schlichting,
Cecil Lake, B.C.
