For the next year, this column will mark The Western Producer’s 100th anniversary by taking a deep dive every week into a past issue of the paper.
The May 15, 1997, issue had a lot of coverage about Manitoba’s Flood of the Century, which was inflicting massive damage in the province.
However, stories about the Canadian Wheat Board were also prominent.
For starters, a federal election was underway, and the board had become a campaign issue.
The NDP was running a national daily TV spot condemning the Liberals for not pushing through wheat board reform legislation before the election was called.
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Meanwhile, the Liberals were accusing the Reform party of wanting to destroy the wheat board. It took another 15 years, but the Reform party, by then called the Conservative party, eventually did pretty much just that in 2012 when it dismantled the board’s marketing monopoly.
In other CWB news, the Alberta Barley Commission announced it was appealing a court ruling that decided the wheat board wasn’t contravening farmers’ economic rights under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The case had been launched by the barley commission, the Western Barley Growers Association and 21 farmers.
The Producer also ran a couple of stories about scentless chamomile, including one about attempts by government scientists and agrologists to use seed weevils in several infected areas and then study their impact on the weed.
To inject some levity into an otherwise serious collection of stories, an article in the Farm Living section covered a Manitoba Women’s Institute workshop on home decorating tips.
Brandon interior decorator Maggie Hagyard said it was a good thing women usually take charge of home decorating.
“If colour was left to a man, they’d have beige and brown,” she joked.
This is also the first issue I’ve looked at that included my good friend D’Arce McMillan’s Market Watch column.
D’Arce had joined the paper the previous year and was our markets editor until his retirement a few years ago.
He still writes his column, which can be found weekly in the Markets section.
