Letters to the editor – August 22, 2013
TAX WARNING
To the Editor:
I’m writing this letter to give farmers a head’s-up about school taxes going up this year. Premier Brad Wall (Saskatchewan) took the six percent early pay discount away and he thought that it would go unnoticed. Just like we did not notice that he grew the provincial budget from under $7 billion to almost $11 billion since he took office.
Our roads here away from big cities are horrible; the only part of the Saskatchewan boom we see is the boom when our vehicles hit the potholes.
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I know he’s busy catering to unions, motorcycle riders and Roughrider fans, it’s just a shame that he’s changed so much since his early beginnings as a politician.
HONEYMOON IS OVER
To the Editor:
Congratulations to (federal agriculture minister) Gerry Ritz on his first year of open market failure since killing the farmer controlled single desk of the Canadian Wheat Board.
Your right hand cheerleader, Cherilyn Nagel Jolly, (was) the first Canadian farmer to sign a contract in Dec. 2011 for $7.50 per bushel for the post- CWB era.
Today the open market wheat is selling near $5.50 per bushel. The honeymoon is over for the next 50 years.
Farmers are already being underpaid on issues like protein, grading and a 40 percent loss in the number of producer cars amounting to over a $5 million loss.
Farmers are at the mercy of the grain companies, which have all the advantages on their side and no elected farmers to challenge them on any issues.
The grain companies now have total control over the industry and farmers have few if any regulations or rules that can protect them from predatory pricing or gouging by the grain companies.
It is also very disgusting to see Gerry Ritz hide behind a podium on some Tory farmyard near Regina, to spread his propaganda without any data to support his claims.
Meetings should be held in a public arena and not with his handpicked, publicly funded, Western Canadian Wheat Grower Association acting as puppets for the (Stephen) Harper government.
NO FORGIVING PAMELA
To the Editor:
When Bill C-18, the legislation wrecking the Canadian Wheat Board (CWB) was rapidly making its way through the House and Senate in 2011, it became clear that neither of the two standing committees on agriculture were going to come to the Prairies.
As a result, nearly 40 farmers from across the Prairies travelled to Ottawa at their own expense to meet with their elected and appointed representatives about why the elimination of the single desk of the CWB was an ill-advised move for Canadian agriculture.
My job was to call every senator to set up a time when they could meet with a couple of these concerned farmers.
Over three weeks, I made hundreds of phone calls and was only able to set up a couple of dozen meetings.
Many senators were unavailable and some outright refused to meet with our delegation. One of those who refused was senator Pamela Wallin — the same Pamela Wallin who, when pressed on her living expense scandal, proudly trumpets her roots in Wadena, Sask.
Maybe senator Wallin has been away from the Prairies for so long, in the newsroom and the Senate, that she has forgotten one of the great traits of this province: hospitality.
We were not asking her to fly to Saskatchewan to meet with us. We went to her and she would not give us the time of day.
If senator Wallin showed up unannounced at any farm in Saskatchewan, dollars to doughnuts says that she would be invited in for a cup of coffee.
Yet, when Saskatchewan farmers were at her office doorstep for three weeks, she would not extend that same courtesy.
Senator Wallin’s main defence over her expenses is that she represents Saskatchewan in Ottawa and is a de facto ambassador of the province.
This is where any pity I could muster for the senator goes out the window.
If she is such a tireless representative of the people of Saskatchewan, why would she not meet with any of the Saskatchewan farmers who had paid for their own flights, hotels and meals to make it as easy as possible to have a meeting with her?
I could forgive Pamela Wallin if she had simply made a clerical error on her expense forms but I cannot and will not forgive her because she is … claiming her expenses for being nothing more than an appointed cheerleader for the PMO….
We are the people she was appointed to represent and she refused to meet with us.
It seems that the only people being represented by senator Wallin are her glorious benefactors in the Conservative Party of Canada.
MAGPIE INFESTATION
To the Editor:
I am alarmed at the increasing numbers of magpie birds in the area. I can remember in the 1930s first seeing them in Chauvin.
My father told me they had moved in from the mountains. Now they are overpopulating at an extremely fast rate.
My idea to control their ability to reproduce from one year to the next is to go out with a shotgun and shoot out the bottom of their nests, which would destroy the whole batch, young and all.
You would have to go out before the young become too old, in the early spring (March or April) when they first start nesting.
Another way to control this pest is to use two consecutive feedings of Warfarin (a mild poison that thins the blood).
Make sure to place this where magpies hang out but out of reach of pets or deer, etc.
Be sure to place the Warfarin in a sturdy dish such as a hubcap or old roaster and be sure to secure the dish down with heavy rocks or baler twine. It is too late to shoot at these birds now, so let them come to you and eat the Warfarin.
I am suggesting this as someone who is worried about the decline of our small bird population (robins, finches, orioles, etc.).
I hardly see these birds anymore as a result of the rising magpie breed, which no doubt have been killing these little birds.
I think other farmers and sportsmen should help take care of the overpopulated magpie population. If we each helped out we might be able to control this.
It will take time but it is not too late. The sooner we act together the sooner we can save the other little birds.
