It’s safe to say lots of farmers are mad as hell at federal Finance Minister Bill Morneau and his boss, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau over the proposed small business tax overhaul. Why is this? Is it because they’re a bunch of fat-cat tax-cheats who have gotten their fingers caught in the cookie jar and are […] Read more
Tag Archives Blog — page 2
Why farmers are mad as hell at Morneau and Trudeau
Why American dairy farmers might want to think twice about killing supply management in Canada (Part III of III)
If American farmers want to avoid future dairy trade tussles with Canada, they should probably support Canada’s supply management (SM) system. That might seem like a bizarre notion, considering that anger and upset with SM is high right now in dairy-exporting U.S. border states, and has drawn the endorsement of no less a champion than […] Read more
The Canadian farmer’s best friend (for now) will probably be the U.S. farmer (Part II of III)
Canadian farmers are very, very fortunate that U.S. farmers are exporting more than ever these days, because if anybody is going to be able to stave off U.S. President Donald Trump’s anti-trade moves it will be U.S. farmers. Trump is instinctively suspicious of trade deals and so far, in his first three months in power, […] Read more
Time for Canadian farmers to work with U.S. allies to fend off U.S. enemies
U.S. President Donald J Trump, the real one from Twitter, gave everybody in Canada a heart attack last week when he almost announced a USxit from NAFTA. According to a number of reports, it took new U.S. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue running over to the White House with a map highlighting the regions of the […] Read more
Anxiety, uncertainty and perplexity: the mood in Washington this week
Is he actually going to do these things? Does he even understand them? Will we get anything done? Those questions seemed to be swirling around the Washington, D.C. agriculture and trade policy community this week as I and a group of agricultural journalists met with congressmen and farm policy experts in the U.S. capital. Anxiety, […] Read more
Twilight of the freedom to farm?
Are we living in the twilight of farmers’ freedom to farm? Until the last few years farmers have been able to choose their crops, choose their methods and choose their products and tools based almost entirely on their own choices and decisions. It’s always been the way, until very recently. And it’s still the way, […] Read more
Who is standing up for hog farmers?
I was delighted to hear that Manitoba’s film industry experienced its best year in a decade in 2016, keeping 1,600 workers busy with $127 million in projects. That’s a big deal here in Winnipeg, where I write. In my own neighbourhood you can often see strings of trucks lining side streets as one home or […] Read more
VIDEO: Canola finally getting its due?
There’s been a huge amount of newspaper ink spilt and radio time yakked-up by discussions about high-tech companies like Bombardier and (once important) Northern Telecom. Yet canola, arguably as important to Canada as the aerospace industry, gets far less attention. In a 2016 report, Canada’s federal science ministry said aerospace provided a $28 billion economic […] Read more
Trumpian uncertainty in farm and food markets
A perfect example of how the market isn’t one thing, one being, or one organism was the immediate sell-off then almost immediate rebound of stock prices with the surprising and shocking election in November of Donald Trump as U.S. president. Stocks sold off dramatically as those panicked by his ideas and behaviours (or assuming others […] Read more
“Buy America” means “build export capacity” for Canadians
In his inauguration speech Friday, Donald Trump didn’t tone down the anti-trade rhetoric. “From this day forward, it’s going to be only America first, America first,” he said. “Every decision on trade, on taxes, on immigration, on foreign affairs will be made to benefit American workers and American families . . . Protection will lead […] Read more
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