TWO ADS, TWO REACTIONS
Over the last few weeks, farmers and Canadians in general have been talking about two ads.
Somewhat ironically, both were throwbacks to simpler times, but that’s all they have in common. I thought one was classy and the other classless. One brought tears to my eyes; the other just made me smirk.
When thinking of my grandchildren, one gave me a sense of pride; the other made me feel sheepish.
Of course, the ultimate test of an ad is whether or not it sells the product it is extolling. I may not be typical of the average farmer, but I can tell you that today, I am far more inclined to buy a Dodge truck than I am to sign a Canadian Wheat Board contract.
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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?
Terry James,
Vegreville, Alta.
OAT MARKETING FREEDOM
On Feb. 14, 2010 — Valentine’s Day — I sold a tandem load of oats for $3.50 per bushel. I loaded a second load of oats to take to town the very next day and guess what?
The price of oats dropped 10 percent. This amounted to a loss of $178.50 on the load.
I have monitored the price of oats since that time and have seen oats hit $3.50 a bu. only a few times, but I have often seen it go lower than $2 per bu. This is the “marketing freedom” I have with oats.
I predict that with the “marketing freedom” that (federal agriculture minister) Gerry Ritz has given wheat and barley farmers now, they will be big financial losers within three years. But there are some winners already besides the private trade that skimmed that money off my oat crop. Minister Ritz has given $300,000 of taxpayers’ money to the “oat growers association” to find new markets.
Didn’t he say the farmers’ responsibility ends when the grain hits the elevator’s pit?
So why should taxpayers’ money be given to some handpicked group of “marketing freedom” oats growers? Isn’t it the responsibility of oats buyers to find their own oats markets and not the taxpayers? Doesn’t minister Ritz believe in the market?
If oats were still under the CWB’s single desk, oats marketing research and promotion could be done for pennies per bushel and farmers would be in control.
Previously, with the combined basket of crops, the single desk CWB could gain efficiencies in marketing multiple crops.
Now that Ritz has killed the CWB’s single desk, no grain company will spend any money on market development when they can just flip the crop after taking it from farmers.
Instead,Ritz has to give taxpayers’ monies to his loyal farm groups to supposedly carry this work out.
Mr. Ritz and his federal government have made a financial mess out of grain marketing and have taken away farmer control, which will take years for another government to straighten out.
Edward Sagan,
Melville, Sask.
HANDS OFF HYDRO
When I was a young man, I was involved in a 4-H program, and lived by the organization’s motto, “Learn to Do by Doing.”
What I learned from that experience is that people make a difference. I grew up in a rural community where our school was a community school. It was actually built by the parents of the children that attended that school.
I coached and volunteered, just as my parents had done, because I knew that people make a difference in the lives of others. As an elected official, I’ve learned that people matter greatly when it comes to developing policy that makes sense.
The NDP doesn’t understand that. They are directing Manitoba Hydro to plow ahead with a $21 billion megaproject plan gamble to build two new hydro dams and a hydro transmission line without giving the people of Manitoba a say in how that project should be structured, or if the project is needed at all.
Instead of being open, transparent and including Manitobans in the decision process, the NDP hides facts and makes it as difficult as possible for Manitobans to understand the project.
Take for instance the review processes for these projects. According to Manitoba’s sustainable development principles, economic and environmental decision-making should be integrated to create a clear picture of whether the project makes sense or not. The Wuskwatim dam was reviewed this way and the process worked well.
For the megaproject, however, the NDP created four different review commissions to study individual pieces of the project. These commissions complained they can’t do a complete job without more information and a better review process than the one dictated by the NDP. The NDP refused to provide it.
Many Manitoba Hydro officials and experts, both present and past, say that the NDP’s approach doesn’t make sense…. According to the experts, Manitoba will not need new power generation for a decade.
The NDP are directing Manitoba Hydro to spend $21 billion on the Keeyask and Conawapa dams and BiPole 3 hydro line on the gamble of selling profitable power into foreign markets. The effect of this megaproject gamble will be to triple your Manitoba Hydro debt and have your hydro rates double if the NDP’s gamble on export sales pays off….
In the end, the NDP won’t have to pay up if their gamble doesn’t work: the people of Manitoba and their children will be forced to pay. The price will be higher hydro bills and increased taxes to cover hydro’s debt. That’s why it’s so important Manitobans demand a complete review of the megaproject plan by experts and not NDP cabinet ministers….
Brian Pallister,
Leader of the Official Opposition
MLA for Fort Whyte, Man.
WHY GO BACKWARD?
“The whole history of the progress of human liberty shows that all the concessions yet made to her august claims have been born of earnest struggle,” Frederick Douglass said.
“If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favour freedom and yet deprecate agitation are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. The struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, or it may be both moral and physical, but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong that will be imposed on them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those they oppress.”
These words are certainly relevant to what is currently happening in our country under the regressive (prime minister Stephen) Harper regime. Name just about any realm of hard-won public gain and you will find Harper actively working to bring us back to the good old days of rule by the oligarchy, where most citizens are nothing more than cheap disposable labour.
Health care, corporate domination, environment, labour, democracy itself — all going backward under the Regressive Conservatives.
Too many Canadians are quietly submitting, their senses dulled by easy credit, ever present advertising and corporate media propaganda.
Submitting is a very dangerous course. Resist.
Mike Bray,
Indian Head, Sask.
LACK OF RESPECT
The CWB was a self-sufficient organization that pooled and marketed prairie farmers’ grain, run for the most part by the farmers. It was a non-profit organization, where all the profits were returned to the farmer once all the deals were done.
The government’s idea of the CWB is something of value. They are inviting grain companies and foreign investors to “have a piece of the prairie grain business.”
Again, this government is showing a total lack of respect to the grain producer. For someone to get a piece of the prairie grain business, someone has to give up a piece.
This is not good for the producers or the country. This will put our food production, and the management thereof, into corporation or foreign ownership, or both.
Cream skimmed off the top will never end up in the local rural economy. Everybody loses and will have less. Why do corporations and foreign investors invest in organizations that are privatizing? To make money.
If one person can tell me one reason why this is good for the producer, I would like to hear it.
Gerald Marshman,
Rockyford, Alta.
