Mocking Parliament

Your reading list

Porky: (noun) British rhyming slang – a lie. Canadian Oxford Dictionary.

On Nov. 2, I had the opportunity to represent the Canadian Wheat Board, along with Allen Oberg, at the legislative hearings held in Ottawa to “discuss” the dismantling of the CWB. That same evening the minister of agriculture, Gerry Ritz, also addressed the committee.

There is no way to hide from the reality that the Conservative government is simply mocking Parliament and mocking western farmers with its smothering of debate and its false statements to the people of Canada. What kind of porkies was the minister telling? Here are just a few examples:

Read Also

Producers face the reality of shifting grain price expectations

Significant price shifts have occurred in various grains as compared to what was expected at the beginning of the calendar year. Crop insurance prices can be used as a base for the changes.

• “(Without the wheat board), there’s going to be a lot more (wheat, durum, and barley) going to market positions earlier and get us away from starting our trucks and augers at -40 in January,” Gerry Ritz said at a Nov. 2 legislative committee hearing.

So the minister is saying that farmers do not have to deliver non-board grains – flax, canola, peas, etc. – in bad weather conditions? With Canada’s small logistics pipeline to the West Coast, and grain companies wanting to ship even more grain west without the CWB involved in logistics planning, this statement from the minister is a “porky” of the first degree.…

• “I’ve never been allowed to attend a board meeting …. They’ve always said, ‘now’s not a good time, the directors don’t really want to hear from you.’ There’s a number of different reasons that I’ve been told and I was never allowed to attend a board meeting.” – Gerry Ritz, Nov. 2 legislative committee hearing. Another blatant porky.

Letters of invitation for the minister to meet with the CWB directors are on file at the CWB, starting in 2008. The last written invitation was for him to attend the board’s meeting on Oct. 12-13, 2011.

The minister’s testimony is full of porkies just like the ones above.

I’m not afraid of an informed debate or a difference of opinion. But I am afraid of a minister of the crown that can make such knowingly false statements …. Theirs is one steamroller that needs to be stopped.

Stewart Wells,Swift Current, Sask.

———

section=opinion, none, none