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 Feb. 27, 1975, issue had a couple of examples of how some things never change.
One was the coverage of a federal civil service strike that involved west coast and Lakehead grain workers, among other employees.
There were reports of 1,400 car loads of grain sitting idle in Winnipeg’s rail yards because of the strike.
The Canadian Wheat Board said 30 ships were waiting to pick up cargo in Vancouver and eight more were due that week. The ships had potential cargo space totalling more than 26 million bushels.
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Eleven ships were destined for Japan, five to China and three to Algeria.
The emphasis seemed to be on getting as many cars as possible to the West Coast and the Lakehead so that cargo would be available to be picked up as soon as the strike ended.
The wheat board estimated that 8,600 cars were loaded and en route to the West Coast with 1,700 on hand in Vancouver and 1,700 west of Calgary and Edmonton.
The other example was immigration.
The paper’s editorial in this issue had the headline, “What should Canada be doing about an immigration policy?”
It was based on the Green Paper on Immigration that had just been tabled in the House of Commons and presented four options:
- Global targets for immigration numbers with quotas for zones and individual countries.
- Annual ceilings with a global limit each year established in consultation with the federal and provincial governments and other groups.
- Gearing immigration numbers more directly to the Canadian economy and labour market demands.
- Continue the current flexible system that provided for admission of immigrants on the basis of a points system with points granted on the basis of education, wealth and job availability for the applicant.
The editorial writer didn’t pick an option, but ended with this:
“We will do what is possible at The Western Producer to encourage discussion of these and other important questions about Canada’s future.”
