IN CONTEMPT?
To the Editor:
The contemptuous treatment of Canadian farmers-citizens by the (Stephen) Harper Conservatives is unbelievable. It should make most who voted Tory cringe in shame.
Harper, (Gerry) Ritz and (David) Anderson destroyed the Canadian Wheat Board, which was operated by a board of farmers elected by farmers, paid for by farmers and worked on the behalf of all farmers.
They reduced the role of the Canadian Grain Commission, which protected farmers from unscrupulous grading by grain companies.
They eliminated the Canadian Food Inspection Agency’s role in protecting consumers from unsafe drugs and food products, false advertising, and enforcing food labelling, all for the benefit of consumers.
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More recently they cut the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Administration, which operates 85 community pastures, water management, grants for wells and dugouts and provides trees for farms, community development, municipal governments, etc.
These pastures continually moved their bulls around, thus eliminating the need for farmers-ranchers buying expensive breeding bulls every few years.
Ritz had the gall to announce that the government was setting up a $25 million grant … to boost the amount of grain shipped through the Port of Churchill.
Who will get this money? Certainly not the farmers. It will go to the likes of Pioneer Grain (Richardson) with terminals at Vancouver, Thunder Bay and Prince Rupert: Alliance Grain Terminal (Vancouver and Thunder Bay); Parrish & Heimbecker (Vancouver and Thunder Bay); Cargill (Vancouver, Thunder Bay and Prince Rupert); Viterra (Vancouver, Thunder Bay and Prince Rupert); ADM (Thunder Bay) and OmniTrax Rail.
Is anyone naive enough to think that these corporation will utilize Churchill when they already own terminals at other ports?
Add to this the thousands of people they have fired, the changes to the Employment Insurance and increased eligibility for OAS from 65 to 67, and they have proven, without a doubt, that their loyalty lies with the corporate sector of the world and not the Canadian citizen.
At the same time they have reduced the corporate tax rate from 21 percent (2007) to 15 percent (2012). Small wonder they have deficit budgets.
Supply managed benefits
To the Editor:
I would like to comment on Mr. (Terry) James’ letter to the editor (WP May 17) on supply management.
While supply management does keep an orderly flow of management products (milk, eggs and poultry) to consumers, it also protects consumers as all these products are inspected for pathogens that could cause illness or death.
Look south where there is no supply management and few inspections: 47 million get food poisoning, 300,000 people are hospitalized every year from food poisoning and 5,000 people die.
Many of these deaths are from milk, milk products, eggs, poultry and meat. Figures are from the U.S. CDC.
Leaving aside the inspection of food, let’s look at cost increases Mr. James blames on supply management.
The only way I see to compare our supply management products prices is with countries similar to ours who have no supply management, in Canadian dollars:
- New Zealand — milk, $3.75 per two litres; eggs, $3.20 per dozen; chicken breasts, $16 per kilogram
- Australia: milk, $1.40 per litre; eggs, $3.50 per dozen; chicken breasts, $13 per kg.
How do these prices compare to our prices? I’ll let you judge. I am sure you will want to quote U.S. prices, which are lower than ours. However, do you want to risk hospital or death for a few dollars? I don’t.
Put the blame where it belongs, on the middlemen and the chain stores. For example, apples, for which farmers get 15 to 20 cents a pound, sell in the stores at $1.69 to $1.99.
How many of your poor people can afford “an apple a day?” That’s 700 to 900 percent profit.
Most farmers make a reasonable working man’s living, and supply management gives them that. We Canadians have some of the cheapest, safest food in the world.
In 1961, Canadians spent 19.1 percent of their income on food, today that figure is 9.3 percent. Be happy, Mr. James, we have it good.
WALL PRIORITIES
To the Editor:
Saskatchewanians need to question premier (Brad) Wall’s priorities that destroy progressive programs that led to Saskatchewan’s leadership role in social services, health, labour and arts in Canada, all without constituent consultation: promised no privatization of crowns and then sold their assets and took their profits; and took school boards’ educational funding responsibilities, refuses to fund increased enrolments and sends an ad, at taxpayers’ expense, refuting the boards’ re-quests.
Despite its mandate to fund the two school systems, Wall chooses to provide education grants to private religious schools.
His government oversees the removal of 345 assistants that provided classroom help for special needs students.
Wall took $8 million from the Station 20 core community project to provide needed health, training, library and nutritional food services but can find $1.7 million to fund condo development onthe Whitecap Reserve — not his jurisdiction.
His cuts to the “revenue returning” film industry, the Saskatchewan Arts Council, the Western Development Museum, residential welfare cases and Nipawin’s support program for First Nation’s youth are despicable. The latter saved millions in social, health and justice costs.
Wall (is) privatizing surgeries, reading of CT and MRI scans and laundry services. Minister (Bill) Boyd signed trade agreements, TILMA with British Columbia and Alberta and North West Economic Agreement with six states, B.C. and Alberta.
The ramifications of these are yet to be realized. Wall is also developing non-renewable resources with reckless abandon of environmental issues.
I’m tired of his incoherent ramblings “full of sound and fury signifying nothing.”
LYME DISEASE AN ISSUE
To the Editor:
It has come to my attention that Lyme disease is a prevalent issue in Manitoba. Over the past legislative session, numerous cases have come to my attention in which testing and treatment plans have proven to be insufficient, leaving patients to suffer.
Many patients have been forced to travel outside the province to be properly diagnosed, and with that diagnosis, can be treated.
Without early treatment, this disease can mask other devastating health conditions, and ruin a lifestyle.
While I have the utmost confidence in the doctors of this province, I am aware that the infrastructure that this government has to deal with this disease is lacking.
The state of Minnesota can diagnose over 1,000 cases a year, while this province can only diagnose 25. We are all aware that deer ticks do not stop at the border and check in, so legitimate questions arise when we see cases in this province that are improperly diagnosed.
My office has received dozens of cases where treatment and diagnosis plans have failed.
Cases like Mason French of Dominion City, whose mother had to take him to four doctors to receive a proper diagnosis, or Marie Hughes, who after years of fighting the bureaucracy still does not have a proper diagnosis, or Michelle Miller, who has to go on $2,000 IV treatments to curb the symptoms, provide a snapshot into this disease and the effects it can have on someone.
I want to encourage all those affected to contact my office with their story, as I feel that this government needs to hear the importance of this issue, and needs to properly act on it.
