Positive change; Gibbings tribute; Standard stuff
Positive change
As one of 10 democratically elected members of the Canadian Wheat Board’s 15-member board of directors, I’d like to encourage George Powell not to give up on democracy. (“Democracy be damned,” he concludes in his letter published Aug. 6.)
There’s been a lot of positive change for western Canadian farmers since they first began to elect their peers to the CWB board of directors 10 years ago.
Today, farmers can choose from a range of payment, pricing and delivery options, as well as pooling. Malting barley farmers can choose an up-front cash price.
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Corporate performance benchmarks are in place, linked to employee remuneration. Value-added incentives provide more leeway for niche-market or farmer-owned processing.
All of these initiatives stem directly from the fact that the majority of the CWB directors are farmers, elected by farmers. All of these initiatives are best understood in the context of the strong support for the single desk that exists among western Canadian farmers.
Certainly there are challenges. The questions of voter eligibility and farmer representation that Mr. Powell raises need to be taken seriously, and farmers won’t agree on all matters at all times.
But perhaps Winston Churchill’s perspective is useful here: “Democracy is the worst form of government,” he noted, “except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.”
– Larry Hill,
Chair, CWB board of directors,
Swift Current, Sask.
Gibbings tribute
I was saddened to read in the Aug. 13 issue of The Western Producer of the passing of Charles Gibbings.
I had the privilege to attend the school of agriculture for a year when Charlie, as we always called him, taught a class in public speaking. In later years I served as a delegate for District 11, Sub district 3 when Charlie was our director and president of Saskatchewan Wheat Pool.
We were proud of him as he moved into the Canadian Wheat Board. This was an advantage of all delegates, as in his reports at the annual meeting of SWP we became more aware of the benefits of the board to producers and could question him on related matters.
Charlie had a great sense of humour as well. I remember one incident that occurred at one annual meeting. It was right after lunch and Charlie was at the podium making a speech.
As often happens after lunch, people want to doze off. One delegate at the front would start to doze off only to jerk his head upright. This happened a few times till Charlie said, “Will someone wake this guy up before he breaks his bloody neck?”
This was met with a great uproar of laughter.
The SWP had some great presidents but none that I knew were greater than Charlie Gibbings.
All who knew him and served with him will read with sadness the news of his passing.
– R. J. (Bud) Thomson,
Alsask, Sask.
Standard stuff
A friend of mine was having problems with tractor tires where calcium chloride was leaking along the valve stems. He was quite shocked to have a tire shop dismantle the rims and discover that both the tires and the inner tubes were foreign, low quality materials. He was even more furious when he discovered metric sizes stamped on the tubes and tires on an allegedly made in the U.S.A. tractor.
I was raised in the 1960s when America automotive and agricultural engineers worked incessantly at standardizing replacement parts and items. …
When the Liberals under Pierre Trudeau introduced the metric system, we were promised that metric measurements would mean a world standard in both exported and imported goods. Today, it’s not uncommon to find a hodgepodge of metric sizes mixed in with SAE measurements.
In his infinite intelligence, Obama forgot an important detail when he was doling out welfare money to GM and Chrysler. He overlooked the clause that should have read, “all bailout cars and trucks shall be assembled with standard SAE nuts and bolts.”
That might have encouraged North Americans to buy North American. God bless the Crescent wrench.
– John Hamon
Gravelbourg, Sask.
