OIL OVER AG
Prime minister Stephen Harper and some of his colleagues often state that Canada’s economy is their first concern.
However, people are rightfully entitled to wonder which sector of the economy gets most of their support. Is it the oil industry or agriculture?
Federal and provincial governments must certainly be aware of the bumper crop harvested on the Prairies. Grain bins of prairie producers and grain terminals are filled to capacity.
That grain needs to be loaded onto rail line grain cars and moved to ports where ships are waiting to be loaded. The producers can then move grain from their farms and get paid for it.
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There is a high cost for ships waiting in port. It is called demurrage. That cost will be deducted from the grain that the farmer sells.
Many producers need money now to meet the costs of putting in the crop this spring.
Obviously, federal and provincial governments must consider that oil is the most important to the economy. It seems that no concern has been shown that thousands of oil tankers are moving on the rail lines, but very few grain cars are moving grain to export position.
Grain producers and their organizations were beginning to express alarm that grain was not being moved. An opposition member in the House of Commons suggested that the minister of agriculture was “asleep at the switch.”
Not so. Ignoring grain movement, simply followed Harper’s dutiful, ritzy minister of agriculture in eliminating the CWB and the democratically elected producers who were on the executive of the CWB. This leaves producers at the mercy of the global grain traders and the oil industry.
It is well known that the number of farm families living on the land is steadily decreasing. Our present government possibly reasons that losing the vote of prairie farm families is no big deal.
But there is a federal election on the calendar for 2015. Canadian voters may well believe that giving preferential treatment to the oil industry is not being fair to prairie producers.
Leo Kurtenbach,
Saskatoon, Sask.
PAYING THE RANSOM
Everyone seems to have missed the whole point of this exercise. The railways and their CEOs are all about the need to improve the return to shareholders. That is the only point. The Conservatives believe it is all about the money all of the time.
Once the railways reach the $550 million cap, set by the Conservative government as a sop to farmers for gutting the CWB, the railways stopped shipping wheat, shed locomotives, grain cars and employees — for CP (Canadian Pacific Railway), 400, 11,000 and 4,500, respectively — thus saving millions of dollars that got passed through to shareholders through a CP share buy-back and CEOs. CN (Canadian National Railway) increased CEO compensation 45 percent.
Now the Conservative government has to look like they are doing something to keep the farmer voters in line, but they have to drag their heels until the new corporate year starts and the cap resets.
The Conservative government minions first ignore, then bluster, then threaten and finally voilá, legislation with penalties is set to take effect April 2014, six months after the backlog began.
The Conservative government is going to strike a committee to convince farmers if only they will remove the cap their wheat will get to market, they will just have to pay more to get it there — the free market system, don’t you know.
But how much more? Would the farmers be willing to pay a $1 to $2 billion ransom of the $4 billion they are currently losing in the “free market” to get their grain off their farms?
How much would they be willing to pay? Hmmm.
The railways’ shareholders and CEOs are waiting with hopeful anticipation for the exercise to play itself out.
Dianne McCollum,
Dunnville, Ont.
INACCURATE INTERPRETATION
Joyce Sasse, in her column Spiritual Vignettes (WP March 20), makes reference to a book written by a certain Philip Jenkins.
The quote reads, “Relating with the ecosphere is at the heart of the Gospel.” Then follows John 3:16: “For God so loved the (ecosphere) world that He gave His only begotten Son.”
The interpretation of this Bible text is completely erroneous.
First of all, Christ did not die to save the planet (ecosphere), but to save His people from their sins, death and hell.
In the text quoted, the word “world” refers to the people living in the world, and in a narrower sense, His chosen people out of the world.
A few more examples where the word “world” means mankind:
- Christ quotes in John 15:18,”If the world hate you, ye know it hated me.”
- Read further, John 17:9, where Christ says, “I pray not for the world, but for them,” and in John 17:14, “and the world has hated them.”
It is obvious that the ecosphere, the inert planet, cannot hate Christ, His disciples or His people and that Jesus does not pray for the planet and therefore did not die for the ecosphere.
It is sad to see that there are people who believe such explanations and are led astray by them.
Further, I would like to commend the WP that space is provided in their publication for the Spiritual Vignettes. However, a closer look should be given at times for the accuracy of the content contributed or referred to by Joyce Sasse.
Peter Rozendaal,
Barnwell, Alta.
FRUSTRATED LEASEHOLDER
I know that not all landowners have oil and gas wells on their property, but those of us that do basically have a winning lottery ticket each year. But not all is well.
Three years ago, we got a letter from the company that operates the gas wells on our property stating that they will no longer pay surface lease, easement payments or any other payments. This was due to the Sask-atchewan government requiring a larger performance bond that the gas company could not, or would not, provide.
So, the government shut in (turned off) the production of the gas field. No production, no income, no surface lease payments.
The government has taken no responsibility for the situation, and as a leaseholder, I feel very frustrated.
Ron Tumbach,
Leader, Sask.
COSTLY POLITICAL HUBRIS
On March 26, the University of Saskatchewan’s Department of Bioresource Policy, Business and Economics hosted a conference dealing with grain handling and transportation in Western Canada.
It brought together some of the best minds in the field, from both Canada and the United States, to examine the current grain transportation mess, which is expected to cost prairie farmers as much as $4 billion in lost revenues this year.
One of the conference goals was to come up with solutions to the complex problems facing the industry.
The key recommendations included more port terminal capacity, rail system upgrades, aggregate planning and logistics and better data collection at all levels.
These proposed solutions would require well-crafted policies and significant investment from both the private and public sectors.
The conference was well attended by all the stakeholders in the supply chain, with farmers making up at least half the audience.
One group was conspicuously absence: provincial and federal politicians. Invitations had been extended to agriculture and transportation ministers at both levels but they were nowhere to be seen.
The only political figure in attendance was the Saskatchewan NDP agriculture critic.
One would expect that well-thought-out solutions to a problem that threatens Canada’s reputation as a reliable grain supplier would be of interest to our governments — apparently not.
Both levels of government have a history of passing legislation based on a “get her done” approach rather than well-researched policy because “they know best.”
We can’t afford such political hubris and should no longer tolerate it.
Blair McCann,
Saskatoon, Sask.
