Strahl's attempt to blame The Wheat Board for the uncertainty is staggering. The only reason why buyers are worried, people are concerned, is because of this government. The Conservatives campaigned on ending supply management, have taken initial steps with respect to barley, promised to deal with wheat beyond next year, and then have the gall to wonder why there is uncertainty. Strahl effectively blames people for reacting to a government that fundamentaly wants to alter an established system. Any idiot knows that markets embrace stability and the known, and conversely react to what is essentially a radical shift. How can the Conservative approach not send shockwaves throughout the commodity? I'm sure The Wheat Board would much rather concentrate on delivering for farmers, but instead this government's attack on the system have forced energy to be wasted elsewhere. Chuck Strahl places the blame, when in fact he is the impetus and the cause.
The Conservative government isn't offering minor reform and tweaking, it's position goes to the heart of the entire system, there is nothing more fundamental. Santa should get Mr. Strahl a mirror, so next time he wants to find the culprit that is responsible for all the hysteria, he can go look at it. Give me a break.
8 comments:
Steve, it the CWB is so great and wonderful,
why don't Ontario farmers want in?
Why don't Quebec farmers want in?
McGuinty and Duceppe would be all over this if it were a benefit to farmers.
Why were 16 farmers in the West SENT TO JAIL for doing the same thing Eastern farmers can do by choice?
wilsom
If the CWB is so regressive, then why did western farmers just do this:
"WINNIPEG (CP) - The Canadian Wheat Board continues to have a slim majority of directors who favour maintaining its monopoly over western wheat and barley marketing after the election of new directors in five Prairie districts.
The result flies in the face of the federal Conservative government's push to dismantle the board's monopoly in favour of giving producers choice in how they sell their grain.
Pro-board directors won four of the five elections, according to results released Sunday. This essentially maintains the balance of power that existed on the 15-member board prior to the mail-in ballots being counted.
I am all for a dual marketing system much like Ontario has, but I think the farmers not the government should make that call. In the case of Ontario, I should note it was a single desk up until 2000 and the decision to move to a dual marketing system was made by the farmers not the politicians. I do though support a plebiscite for barley and wheat producers and hope all sides agree to accept the results.
miles
"I do though support a plebiscite for barley and wheat producers and hope all sides agree to accept the results."
I agree, let the farmers decide in democratic fashion.
The CWB was designed to guarantee a cheap food supply to eastern Canada during the war.
Funny thing, isn't that how our income tax system got started, as a way to support the war effort.
Isn't it strange how these curses then never leave us.
Even stranger still, how then some people get attached to their slavery.
wilson61 is a Tory troll who is very close to the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.
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The Canadian Wheat Board had a section on their website which answered wilson61's question, EXCEPT that the Harper government has forced the Wheat Board to remove those pages from their website - yet here is wilson, trying to plant doubt and asking questions that the CWB is no longer allowed to answer. BUT someone DID save those pages banned pages in pdf!!
Go to this web page, scroll down to the part called 'Wheat Board Facts' and you will find the banned CWB pages beside this note:
[Editorial note: the federal Conservatives have ordered these press releases removed from the Wheat board website. We used archived copies to reproduce them here.]
It is also interesting to note how this Minister of Agriculture is excluding from the voting list those farmers not producing in the last year, be it for rotation of crops, drought, or other significant disaster that prevented them from harvesting a crop last year. The number I have heard most often from the Opposition parties in QP on this issue was something like 16,000 farmers were excluded on this basis, and Strahl defended it by saying if you don't produce regardless of the reason you don't deserve a vote. Some respect for farmers, especially those farmers hurt by one disaster being subject to another...having their vote on the future of the Wheat Board taken away from them by the political whim of the Conservative government of Canada.
Given the history of the CPC with its roots in western Canada and supposedly fighting for farmers the last couple of decades as the Reform/Canadian Alliance in Strahl's case the irony of this is strong indeed.
16 farmers were sent to jail for breaking a customs law, exportation without a valid permit. These farmer were given a fine initially, refused to pay, but rather sit in jail. You and I would both be susceptable to the same fate if we tried to export product without the proper paperwork.
Wilson61, your opinion of the CWB is yours, but recently farmer is 5 districts chose to elect 4 pro CWB directors, what does that tell you? Maybe you need to ask these farmers "what is so great and wonderful" about the CWB, I am sure you would get a direct answer.
Harper and Strahl et al at the Kremiln, oops I mean parliament seem to think a minority victory gives them the right to make decisions for people on a entity that belongs and is controlled by western Canadian producer.
Elimination of the CWB by Harper is a purely ideological stance and is not based on economics. Harper has had hate for the wheat board that goes back to his days with the National Citizens Coalition, where he was given umpteen dollars to do one thing:
Wage a propoganda campaign to discredit the CWB.
If you think I am alone on his matter and the worth of the CWB, consider this:
The governments of Sask, MB, National Farmers Union, Canadian Federation of Agriculture, the Liberal, NDP and BLOC parties among others have all rallied for support of the CWB.
There is not 1 legitimate farm group or advocacy that supports the Harper position. The most vocal is the Western Cdn Wheat Growers, with a membership you can count on one hand, and fundedby the government of Alberta. Look deeply and you will see a collection of grain industry associates who cannot wait get their hands on a piece of the 4-5 billion dollar pie.
As for Ontario, they do have a wheat board, and the way they market their grain is decided by the farmers. Quebecs ENTIRE dairy supply chain runs on the same principle as the CWB, hence the BLOC support for the CWB, because if the CWB falls, the BLOC fear their supply chain could also be threatened by the CPC, and who could blame them, as I am afraid of this government as well.
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