Budget advice; Invalid results?; Cattle assistance; Power questions; FNA credit; Smell the oats Foreign takeover; Smell the oats; Fertilizer prices
Budget advice
In the midst of global uncertainty and change, Canada’s federal government stands ready to implement progressive interprovincial revenue sharing agreements and public policies that could enhance and strengthen Canada’s position in a free market economy.
The collective mind and spirit of confederation is alive and well among the people, but the will of the majority is weak. Canada’s national sovereignty rests upon its dominion and its economic strength and political will relies upon the condition of its heart.
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Late season rainfall creates concern about Prairie crop quality
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When Canada embraces its sovereignty, asserts its will as a dominion and then acts upon its strength with true Canadian courage, confidence will follow.
We need a federal administration that governs, a dominion that negotiates in the true spirit of confederation for the common good of the people, and business that follows suit – one tall order.
Protect the people and public institutions. Preserve the bread basket. Regulate industry. Help the poor, the sick and the infirm. Do not forget the weak and the unemployed.
Grant literacy and educate with truth. Ensure enduring and sustainable Medicare for all Canadians. Design, build and maintain with the long term in mind.
Begin with educating, helping and caring for people. Build bridges, byways and buildings, and include home care programs and facilities for aging seniors in need, many of whom served, built this country and brought freedom to the land we all now enjoy.
Call it idealist-pragmatic politics, but it will play out as the best socio-economic stimulus package ever. Where there is a will, there is a way.
– Maxine Faith Athene,
Saskatoon, Sask.
Invalid results?
The recent Canadian Wheat Board elections saw four out of a possible five directors elected who support the single desk. That is 80 percent of the directors elected who support the single desk; a percentage the federal Conservative government can only dream about attaining in its mandate.
Fortunately, farmers did not vote the way the Conservatives wanted and now their MPs are in full damage control mode. The best spin heard was the ex Western Canadian Wheat Grower Association president Randy Hoback, our newly elected MP for Prince Albert.
He stated that since only roughly 50 percent (actually 52.8 percent) of voters took the time to mail in their ballots, this suggests that the farmers don’t really care if the CWB survives.
That is a really interesting statement. If one believes that a 53 percent voter turnout suggests somehow that the results are invalid, what does he have to say when a mail-in ballot turnout is only 36 percent, as it was in the barley plebiscite?
Never mind the Conservatives had to combine results from separate questions to get their majority result. This is the “plebiscite” which Conservatives are quick to reference as to farmer preference in marketing.
I also wonder what he thinks about the federal election where the turnout was only 59.1 percent. Does that mean the MP also feels the Conservative minority mandate is invalid?
– Dennis Puszkarenko,
Nipawin, Sask.
Cattle assistance
In your Dec. 18 issue (Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff was quoted:) “We must be honest about regaining the trust and confidence and loyalty of the people in the beating economic heart of our country’s future.”
Boy, that was a mouthful.
However, when BSE hit the cattle producers, the Liberal government sent $100 per cow plus some other payments to help us survive. They paid a lot of money to the packing houses to help cover the losses they took. It wasn’t the government’s fault the companies got greedy and beat the farmers out of a lot of money just because they could.
The Canadian Agricultural Income Stabilization program paid by a margin system and it worked because the five years before the BSE, we had decent prices so the numbers were realistic.
Also younger families that had expanded just before BSE had balances factored in. The Conservatives actually redid a lot of forms and corrected the mistakes that were made and cancelled on account of deadlines.
Now the cow-calf producers are getting hit bad. They are mostly family farms. They haven’t had enough good years to create a margin. Feedlots are a bit better as they can use actual numbers feed depreciation and labour.
The cow herds are disappearing at an alarming rate, which may bring a price increase in time. We have lost a lot of our young people and our livelihood. AgriStability does not work at all and (federal agriculture minister Gerry) Ritz will not accept the fact.
Attention, Michael Ignatieff: How about looking into this and using your quote and corrections or suggesting a correction in the January budget while you still have a bit of a big stick. If nothing is said, I’m guessing your definition of Western Canada is from Quebec to Winnipeg.
– Murray Andres,
MacNutt, Sask.
Power questions
The ads that Bruce Power has been running about how they are going to build a nuclear power station along with solar, wind and geothermal leaves me with a number of questions.
What are their plans for wind, solar and geothermal? Even though the ads talk about alternate energy sources, the message comes through that nuclear power is their prime objective.
My second question is, what is new generation nuclear power? Is it a new generation light water reactor like the ones at Three Mile Island? A graphite reactor like at Chernova? A Candu, like the ones that Ontario Hydro customers are paying on a $38 billion debt that was left after Bruce Power bought the Candu’s from Ontario Hydro? Or is this a new generation reactor that has never been tested anywhere and we are to be the guinea pigs?
What is the projected cost per kilowatt hour of electricity and is that projected cost guaranteed?
Where are they going to get the cooling water for the reactor? Are we going to be stuck with an uneconomic and an environmentally unsound Highgate dam to supply cooling water?
These and other questions need answers before we get too enthusiastic about this nuclear power station.
– Gil Pedersen,
Cut Knife, Sask.
Postal issues
Why is Canada Post treating their small community lock box mail receivers as second class citizens? At the same time they are turning my neighbours, who work in our local post office, into a gestapo.
About a dozen years ago Canada Post told their customers with lock box mail delivery that our lock boxes would be considered as an extension of our house. This put us on the same level as their urban mail receivers who get home delivery.
Here in our small town post office, which is staffed by neighbours, we are being asked to show two pieces of identification to renew mail delivery to our mail box on a yearly bases, year after year after year.
I talked to friends and relatives from various areas of Canada. A few years ago a relative moved into a new city home.
They never showed identification to begin mail delivery to their home and have never shown identification to renew mail delivery each and every year since.
My neighbors who work in our local post office do not need identification to talk to me in any other business or any other public facility in our community. But the minute they go behind the post office counter, it is like they walked through some kind of mind erasing device and they suddenly do not know their neighbour. When they leave the post office their mind is reestablished. …
I can understand it when new people move into the community that they should show identification to set up a lock box but after that, identification should never have to be needed.
I telephoned a Canada Post official using a toll free number. I was told that this is for security. What security? I have been getting my mail from the same mailbox for over 50 years. Some of our community residents have been getting mail from the same box for upwards to 80 years. If Canada Post is talking security, why not for everyone, not just a few?
We are told that if we do not show identification, our mail will be returned to sender. …
My neighbours who work for Canada Post have taken quite a bit of abuse from customers for this silly idea.
Whoever in Canada Post came up with this idea should be placed in our local post office and stand up to the abuse. Not my neighbours who work for them.
– Delwyn J. J. Jansen,
LeRoy, Sask.
FNA credit
Thank you for your Nov. 13 article on the Churchill port volumes up despite tight grain supply.
In the spirit of credit where due, I noted that your Brandon bureau
news acknowledged everyone connected to the fertilizer imports except the organization that actually negotiated and shipped it.
Without Farmers of North America’s fertilizer program, there would have been nothing for all those others to do, let alone get credit for.
For my part, thanks to FNA not just for the lower-priced fertilizer, but for helping to make Churchill a more viable port.
– Laura Bozovich,
Saskatoon, Sask.
Foreign takeover
According to figures provided by Industry Canada, over 11,000 Canadian companies have been taken over by foreigners between June 30, 1985 and Dec. 31, 2008.
The total value of foreign investment during this period amounted to a whopping $854 billion….
Only 2.2 percent of this investment was for new business.
The rest was for takeovers of Canadian companies by foreign corporations, mainly American based.
In relentlessly pursuing their vacuous laissez-faire ideology, it appears that successive Liberal and Conservative right wing government politicians in Ottawa are allowing our country to be sold to the highest bidder.
I believe it was U.S. government official Robert MacNamara who stated that there are two ways to conquer a nation: one was by force of arms, and the other by gaining control of its economy.
Oh, well, we still have Tim Horton’s. Or have we?
– William Dascavich,
Edmonton, Alta.
Smell the oats
Mr. Ed White’s story (U.S. oat success hinges on Prairies, WP, Dec. 25) states that Jim Bair, North American Millers Association president, urges oat growers in Western Canada to continue to keep growing cheap milling oats.
I added the word cheap because that is what Jim Bair is wanting farmers to continue to do.
American oat growers have stopped growing oats because they don’t like growing oats at a loss. They are growing corn for the biofuel industry where they will make a dollar at the end of the day or field.
Mr. Bair states that the North American Miller’s Association is afraid that wheat production in the U.S. is going to be essentially where oats is today. Surprise, surprise.
Well, here is a message for you people. Start paying a proper or respectful price for your oats and wheat and you won’t have to worry about that. You could double the prices you are paying and it would only increase the final prices of your product by a fraction.
Millers don’t operate at a loss, bakers don’t operate at a loss, merchants don’t operate at a loss, so why do you expect farmers to grow grain at a loss? You expect farmers to get a second job or second business so they can grow grain below cost of production.
But how many of you people get second jobs or start another business so you can keep your primary business operating at a loss? No, not one of you do, yet you expect farmers to do it.
Well, farmers are getting tired of being taken advantage of. So Mr. Bair, maybe you and the rest of the people in your group should wake up and smell the roses or maybe I should say smell the flour, before you don’t have any to smell.
– Ken Leftwich,
Esterhazy, Sask.
Fertilizer prices
The last few weeks of December revealed the capitalism excesses that fertilizer wholesalers can enact in order to protect their fat profits. For example, there was industry-wide connivance to withhold the usual pre-buy programs for spring NH3. Dry fertilizers were quoted at levels way above prices expected under current grain markets. Frustration was rampant among farmers. Fertilizer producers preferred to hurt their own employees through lay-off notices in order to artificially create tight supplies.
Since September, fertilizer prices have experience a major correction in the international wholesale market as a consequence of demand destruction from farmers worldwide. NH3 deliveries for December-January at Tampa, Florida, were priced at $125 per ton. Urea prices in November-December stabilized at around $230-$235 per ton. Phosphate was traded in the $400-$500 range. Elemental sulfur was available at Vancouver port at $45-$60 per ton.
Price fixing is not legal in Canada. Unfortunately, the limited number of fertilizer wholesalers in Canada means that genuine competition does not exist.
One CEO of such a company publicly stressed, on many occasions, that his company has a lot of “pricing power.” Well, I think that fertilizer wholesalers are about to experience “farmer power” in the next two to four months because there is a severe disconnect.
Fertilizer wholesalers and farmers must work together to maintain sound economy for fertilizer companies and vibrant grain markets. This harmony has been broken in the Canadian prairies.
Farmers have the right to expect fertilizer prices that reflect current grain prices, not artificial and excessive profits for the shareholders of fertilizer companies.
РFran̤ois Messier,
Saskatoon, Sask.
