Letters to the editor

Cattle prices

A recent sale of feeder steers at half price prompts me to make the following comments. Why are not butcher cattle prices tied to the U.S. future price less the applicable basis? This would give us a normal price for our butcher cattle.

The meat is going south anyway. Why should we be giving it away? Or is it in the same category as our oil, gas, lumber, hogs and wheat? In turn, the feedlots would not be going broke and could pay us a normal price for our feeders.

Read Also

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?

We do not need an open border. It will only cost us jobs at the packers and feedlots. We have lots of feed grain. Why not use it here?

Our federal government has done nothing to improve the situation. The few dollars spent on transition payments and the occasional CAIS (Canadian Agricultural Income Stabilization) dollars cost more to hand out than they are worth. The profit at packing plants reeks of another sponsorship scandal.

Our local co-op is trying to get a cow slaughter plant going in Dauphin. Our provincial government is coming up with money to help.

Our federal government can’t find any. They have found $100 million for an Izzy Asper museum in Winnipeg. This could have been better used to buy back our packing industry from the carpetbaggers now running it. There are also countless millions and billions for other schemes not passed by legislation.

Ñ William Mansell,

Inglis, Man.

Political follies

Once again, western Canadian folks must sit back and endure the follies and idiocy of our eastern based government.

Since the onset of the Gomery commission, we’ve witnessed millions of dollars of sheer waste, all in the name of protecting one single entity, the Liberal Party of Canada. Now the NDP have joined the ranks of the rogues who control this nation….

Why are the feds wasting millions of dollars with the Gomery commission? Is it so hard to fathom that a government that promoted same sex marriage, legalized marijuana, the possession of child pornography, among other transgressions, would even bat an eye at the mere theft of a few million dollars?

Would we be in shock at finding out that a member of the Hell’s Angels gang was arrested for shoplifting tools?

The crime, however, does not lie in the disappearance of, as Jean ChrŽtien once stated, “a few million here and there.” The crime lies in those who suffered from the loss of government programs, especially here in the West.

How many farmers, small businesses and other rural establishments were cut short because of Liberal falsehoods that attempted to make us believe the federal coffers were empty? The prime example is the loss of the Crow Benefit.

Anyone who supports the federal Liberal-NDP conglomerate is as guilty as they are. …

I once witnessed a court case where two Saskatchewan farmers were handed down jail sentences for allegedly failing to report 1,200 bushels of wheat production.

“Justice,” stated the judge, “must be served.”

Ñ John J. Hamon,

Gravelbourg, Sask.

Political control

We are celebrating our provinces (Alberta and Saskatchewan) joining Confederation in 1905. This is good.

However, overshadowing our celebration is the sad fact that there have been significant negative changes in our country in the last 100 years.

Under the British North America Act, certain powers and jurisdictions were given exclusively to the provinces and certain powers and jurisdictions were given exclusively to the federal government. Of importance is that the ownership and management of resources and the right of taxation went exclusively to the provinces.

The Supreme Court ruled in 1950 that these jurisdictions cannot be legally traded, exchanged or transferred without a majority vote by the population. This vote to change the BNA Act has never happened.

Our country was built and developed without government debt and without foreign ownership. Fractional reserve banking was introduced into the country where banks can lend money without having the money on deposit. Our governments and citizens needlessly went into debt with a present interest payment going directly from the taxpayer to the banks.

Foreign ownership restrictions were removed, the end result being that many of our citizens are paupers in our own country. The citizens of a country should be the only ones allowed to have ownership of a country.

The present sponsorship scandal has many people wanting to put a different party into power. Before we change the captain and the crew of the Titanic, we should address these important points.

The only possible solution may lie in some form of western independence. It may be impossible to get the present political parties to change their allegiance from serving the banks and international corporations to once again serving the citizens of the country.

If in an independent West we fail to insure that the political control stays with the people, we will not be any better off than we are now.

Ñ Laverne Isaac,

Medstead, Sask.

Working stiffs

I write in response to the Open Forum letter of April 28, entitled Good return.

D.A. Taylor of Spruce Grove, Alta., is really out to lunch with the comments made regarding Farm Credit Canada’s reports on land values. We too are farmers and do not experience any such values nor do we receive any huge CAIS payouts. Never got any yet.

D.A. Taylor, we lose money every time we turn a wheel on the farm. What makes you think farmers are not working stiffs?

If many farm families want to eat, they must rely on off-farm income so that non-farmers can eat.

My husband went to work full time at a sawmill at the age of 15, working out every winter and some summers to build up a farm.

How’s that for a working stiff? No vacation pay, no holiday pay, no pension plan or in some cases health plans, just work, work, work.

If you think it’s so lucrative, go for it. Go to the bank like farmers, borrow money for land and machinery, put in a crop and hope for the best, D.A. Taylor.

Perhaps then, after you put in your eight-hour day with weekends off and know you’re sure to receive your paycheque, you may appreciate the farmer and who raises your food.

Ñ F. Deynaka,

High Prairie, Alta.

Political diet

View from poverty point: Now that I’m back in the tractor, it gives me time to ponder.

I hear there’s a new diet craze in Canada. It’s called politics. Anyone studying Canadian politics lately would lose their appetite for food and upchuck. It’s a sure formula for rapid weight loss.

It’s hard for a farmer trying to figure out the sponsorship scandal in Quebec. I think it must be tied to that phrase “special status for Quebec.”

I always thought we were governed from Ottawa, I didn’t know there was a connection with Sicily.

I shudder to think what might be dug up over the billions spent on the gun registry. It never helped the four Mounties.

But then again, they might call me an honest western thin redneck.

Ñ Miles Moore,

Outlook, Sask.

Remove Liberals

It’s time to remove the Liberal government. The sponsorship scandal among many other questionable actions, has made up my mind.

The gun registry, gay marriage, legalization of marijuana, now with the possibility of a non-confidence vote in Parliament, the Liberals are spending money hand over fist to buy votes as they usually do during an election.

Our country has been run on minority rights and freedoms for some time now. The major issues have been gun registry, gay rights, minority rights.

We have in Canada these parties: Liberal, Conservative, NDP, Bloc and Green Party. But the CBC is very much involved and should at the very least be neutral. Right now they are very opinionated and probably sway votes.

Ñ Otto Fonos,

Glenbush, Sask.

Petro tariff

I see in the Western Producer that Cargill has bought out Better Beef of Ontario.

With this purchase, Cargill slaughters half the cattle under 30 months old in Canada. This means they control the purchase price of slaughter cattle under the age of 30 months. What is wrong with this scenario?

We want to build new packing plants in Western Canada but there must be a stipulation: it cannot be sold to a foreign country, including the U.S.

This BSE has me very frustrated. … The free trade we are supposed to have is only a one-way street. Free trade is controlled by the U.S.

I have a cure for this. We can also break free trade agreements. Let us put a 10 percent tariff on all petroleum exports to the U.S. to pay for exporting our natural resources. Has our federal or provincial government any backbone to do this?

I know they are all cowards when it comes to dictating to the U.S. Let’s put a few men in Parliament to do a job.

Also most of our companies are being taken over by foreign money. It seems money is the only thing people are interested in.

Canadian ownership is not a priority by government or business.