Jack Hayden

[coppertop]

John Knapp will remain as DM, and I am
optimistic that he and Jack can work
with the cattle industry. I think there
were times during the ALMS/Age
Verification initiative that John had to
hold his nose and go out and defend GG's
position.
I wish Ed would have put Jack in the AG
Portfolio in 2008.
This is a new opportunity for the
cow/calf sector to stand up and be
counted, let the new Minister know what
you see as positive changes that can
occur in provincial ag policy.
MLA's are being asked to get input from
the ag industry in their constituencies
so give your MLA a call with some of
your ideas for change.

[HFL]

Kathy........where do you get the idea that Mr. Hayden is a follower? He was a municipal councillor for years. He rose to the position of President of the Alberta Asscociation of MDs and Counties. He did a good job as President. He is a good guy and will do a great job as ag minister.

[sagewood]

Alas, I would call my MP and voice my concerns had he not made the decision to cross the floor and sit with the Wild Rose group--but don't let that stop the rest of you from emailing/phoning and meeting with your MLA's. At this point in time, my area is effectively muzzled and most certainly will have to rely on the rest of the Province to get the word to the powers-that-be.

[per]

Lol Sagewood, I feel you pain. My MLA might not be listened to as well, being the former Minister. We might just as well send our thoughts directly to the new Minister. A note of congrats and a few thoughts might be a plan.

[sagewood]

Excellent advice per, I believe I will do that very thing--thanks..hg

[rkaiser]

Where the heck did you get that attitude of yers per? Awesome. Readin the Dali Lama are we ---LOL

Might want to mention the mediation thing to our new Ag minister as well. Just think how he could get off the hook for a few mil in aid if he just supported a class action suti against the feds. Or at the very least supported mediation rather than years of wasted time.

[coppertop]

Randy, I would not hold my breath if I were
you waiting for any Alberta Minister to
take on the feds unless it is Morton over
the transfer payments.

[kato]

You guys wanna trade?

Our new ag minister, who is the former environment minister, is responsible for a hog moratorium that blamed very environmental problem this province has ever had on pigs.

Also responsible for being a major roadblock in the eradication of TB in Riding Mountain National Park. To boot, now he wants wildlife corridors established between Riding Mountain Park and the Duck Mountain Park so those elk can move around more easily.

Also of spending his term as environment minister coming up with brilliant ways to make agriculture pay for every environmental measure he could dream up.

Oh ya, and then there's the scheme that will make every person in the province who has a pump out sewage system on their farm replace it with a septic field before they can sell their property, which effectively drops everyone's land values by 15 to 50 thousand dollars right off the start. While not dropping any assessments of course.

Shall I continue????

Whatever you guys think of yours, it could be worse.

Oh ya, and now he says he's behind the farmers 100% and wants to hear from them on how he can better serve us! He should be careful what he asks for. LOL

[Kathy]

I will remind everyone, that my MLA, Jack Hayden
was the one who promised my husband and I that
our concerns about the new animal health act,
premise id, etc (which we put in a 5 page letter),
would be immediately distributed to ALL the MLAs
in the Alberta Legislature, not just the Conservative
Caucus. So, taking him for his word, we did as he
advised and sent this important letter to the
Premier's Office with explicit instructions that this
letter make it to ALL MLAs.

Well like fouls we actually believed the staff of the
Premier's Office were credible and competent
enough to do as we asked. A month later, we take
the time to find out why the other non-
conservative parties never responded to our 5 page
letter, and learned they were never received our
letter. Nor was our letter given to anybody but
members of the Conservative Caucus. A response
from the Ag Minister was also only copied to the
Caucus.

This, along with our stupidity, resulted in our
concerns being addressed by the opposition
members AFTER the legislature was closed for
debate and the Xmas season. After the opposition
parties got ahold of the Premier's Office about our
letter, we received a not-so-friendly (with lots of
attitude) call from Barb - if I recall, from the
Premier's office. Apparently, the Premier'ss office
has insufficient staff and funding to get our little
letter to ALL the MLAs. They must also have had
broken fingers at the time, because they couldn't
call us and request we send the letter on our own
dime.

When I see, first hand, that staff in the Premier's
Office are complicit with the politicians in
withholding important information and questions
from the Legislature members...... I don't blame any
MLA for leaving the Conservatives; But, will the
Wildrose Alliance Party be any better... will they
allow free speech and true representation in their
party?

Jack has had plenty of time to represent his riding
and the rural voters concerns (as an MLA). His
actions speak for themselves.

Bring on the next election.... maybe I'll run this
time, I have nothing to lose anymore in doing so.