Rodeo sport; CWB case; Lending issue; Carbon tax; CWB survey;
Rodeo sport
The rodeo sport is no different than any other sport. There will always be injuries or death, whether it be human or animals.
We drive cars. How many deer are killed daily on our highways? Are we not to drive for we might injure or kill a deer or moose?
The rodeo athlete takes great care and pride of these animals, whether it’s calves in tie down roping, team roping or steer wrestling.
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The rough stock are born to buck and if they weren’t in the rodeo arena, the bulls would be canned for Dr. Ballards and the horses slaughtered for meat and shipped to Europe.
So the tree huggers better stop to think that these animals are only used eight seconds out of a few days a year and are well looked after as the contractors make sure that these animals are well cared for, because these animals are the contractors’ paycheque.
Farmers or ranchers can be out riding, checking their own cattle and their horse can step into a badger hole and break a leg. These animals would be put down humanely and it would be the same as the rodeo arena.
How many people as spectators would know these animals were put down due to a broken leg?
When these rodeo animals are retired, they are put to pasture to live out their last years.
Obviously the animal activists should give their heads a shake. What would happen to our country with unwanted animals turned loose to starve or get hit on our highways?
There are a lot of animals that cannot be made into pets or back-yard friends.
– Elaine Cozart,
Brownlee, Sask.
CWB case
Regarding “CWB takes case to Supreme Court” (WP, July 30), it is once again apparent how little the Canadian Wheat Board actually cares about western farmers, despite the rhetoric.
Larry Hill … pretends that his continued pursuit of a monopoly for his corporation is in the defence of farmers. …
Already, most progressive farmers will plant anything else to avoid malt barley and CWRS, and thus avoid the CWB.
I urge the Supreme Court to see through the lie that has cost dearly both western farmers and the nonexistent secondary industries that will thrive once this awful monopoly-bureaucracy is gone.
Mr. Hill has zero interest in farmers and is especially opposed to their having any control. This issue is only and ever about the CWB maintaining its own control over farmers and their grain, over the very substance of a farmer’s livelihood.
This fight is about reducing farmer control while pretending to defend it. How sad.
– S. Wilson,
Edmonton, Alta.
Lending issue
We are a third generation family farm and had been at the same bank for almost 50 years and never missed a payment.
When the hog industry saw tough times, we didn’t fit into their ratios. If Farm Credit Canada hadn’t stepped in, we wouldn’t be farming anymore, and based on conversations with other farmers, this is not a isolated incident.
FCC is already taking on clients that the banks don’t want.


The chartered banks don’t understand agriculture, so it’s interesting to see them try to compete with FCC by getting the government to change FCC’s mandate.
If they want to compete, they should offer services and products the agricultural industry needs and can use.
Thanks, FCC, for being there when no one else was.


– Adrian and Jacqueline Hamoen,
Vega, Alta.
Carbon tax
Humans are notoriously bad at planning for the future. We smoke even though we know lung disease and cancer are the results. We eat junk food that causes heart disease and diabetes.
We buy SUVs and low efficient vehicles knowing they contribute to negative climate change and deplete the fuel supply our grandchildren will need to travel and grow food with.
If the negative of cause and effect was severe, more visible and immediate, we would be more careful with our choices….
Why are we so poor at planning our transportation needs? We have massive subsidization by taxpayers for roadways and fossil fuel infrastructure.
Fossil fuel is so cheap we don’t want to spend any extra on more efficient vehicles or electric public transport that is extremely efficient.
What would be the obvious solution to ensure an adequate supply of fuel for future generations with a clean sustainable environment?
Only when fuel is expensive will we buy fuel efficient vehicles, car pool and take public transit. As soon as we do this, the fuel supply becomes surplus and the price falls until it is once again cheap to drive. Efficiency goes out the window …
The only solution is a flexible carbon tax sufficient to encourage us to leave the car at home, take public transit, buy fuel efficient automobiles and car pool. …
This carbon tax is the only way a low carbon and efficient transportation system could be built. …
The industry under the controls of the capitalist for profit system will never change, nor will they build in efficiencies as long as they run the fossil fuel economy.
It is simply in their vested interest not to develop public transit, low carbon vehicles or design in efficiencies….
We must immediately implement a suitable carbon tax and use it to build public transit and research efficiencies; otherwise the future of humanity and the environment is bleak at best.
We are at the fork in the road; will we choose a sustainable future or a destructive future?
It is our choice now.
There will not be a choice in the near future for our grandchildren.
– R. E. Kennedy,
Simpson, Sask.
CWB survey
I’d like to thank Vern Schaab (“Survey suggestion,” Open Forum, Aug. 6) for taking time to participate in the 2009 CWB Producer Survey, and to invite readers to view the results for themselves at www.cwb.ca/public/en/farmers/surveys/producer/.
The CWB surveys producers annually on issues ranging from CWB corporate performance to confidence in the future of their industry to genetically modified wheat.
Because we’re accountable to western Canadian farmers, it’s important that we have a very clear reading of their opinions, needs and preferences.
Many of the programs we’ve introduced since 1998 are a direct result of farmer input and feedback.
To ensure the annual survey accurately reflects farmers’ views, the CWB engages professionals to help create it and conduct it.
The cost of the 2009 survey was $86,400, a competitive price for this type of research.
More than 1,300 farmers were randomly selected from permit book holders to be interviewed in April and May 2009.
The overall margin of error was +/- 2.68 percent, 19 times out of 20.
The fact that Mr. Schaab was interviewed undermines his suggestion that the CWB wants only to hear from supporters.
– Larry Hill,
Chair, CWB Board of Directors,
Swift Current, Sask
KGB agents
After the collapse of the Russian ruled prison of nations in 1991, many Russian communist KGB agents fled to the West with their booty.
Some settled in Western Canada, buying up expensive apartment blocks in Winnipeg, Calgary or lovely rural hobby farms around Winkler, Morden and other areas.
The Liberal dictatorship under (Jean) Chrétien, which ruled Ottawa at that time, allowed many of these Russian murderers to enter Canada. Ukrainians in Eastern Europe died by the millions because of them.
Western Canadian farmers must remember that much of their grain shipped to Russia via the Canadian Wheat Board once fed many of these murderers.
Now we have (Michael) Ignatieff showing his true left-wing Liberal colours by bad-mouthing Ukraine. Deport all former KGB agents, together with Mr. Ignatieff, back to Russia.
– E. Storzuk,
St. George, Man.
