Did BSE cause traceability?

[Kathy]

Traceability is a natural progression of corporate concentration of the beef and meat industry. It is a tool to control who can, and CAN'T, own cattle.

While we all debate the issues of our industry, we are losing sight of the FACTS, including how our Alberta government has spent the last few years passing legislation allowing them to TAKE our land/ranches from us for the benefit of (pick a group)... ATCO,AltaLink-SNC Lavalin, Encana, Conservation groups.....public good...

Our MLA Jack Hayden is reported to have made this joke at a recent industry meeting:

"How do you get three ranchers to agree on something?..... Shoot two!"

And this is our AB Agriculture Minister. Useless..$!$

We picked out our replacement heifers yesterday. We always pick 25 head. We put large prenumbered tags for our identification (in case they get mixed up with the other yearlings, neighbors cows etc)... 4 out of 25 had already lost their RFID tags. In one year, a 16% loss of tags.

While your busy signing your petition, don't forget to get some good runners, with some bounce to them, you'll need to jump higher and more often in the future.

[DogPatch]

Kathy...... Manitoba would serious consider a trade for your Ag Minister.

[Kathy]

As I watch the news on various channels including
Russia Today and Aljazeera (from our free to air
satellite)... as well as our CTV and CBC... I see a
common thread:

when people are in trouble, they want "the
government" to fix things.

Who is the government? How can they fix all our
problems?

Whether its people flooded in Canada, China,
Pakistan; droughts Canada, Russia, Africa...
everyone is looking to "the government" to come to
their rescue.

I have a problem with this concept. To me, the
government is nothing more than a corporation
that has control of our tax dollars to spend as they
please. Our government takes and takes our tax
dollars and spends it on WAR, giving massive
contracts to corporations like Lougheed-Martin,
Halliburton, Bombardea etc. Meanwhile, had these
tax dollars stayed in the hands of the people, we
would be better able to help ourselves, and our own
communities.

"Every government" is an entity that has developed
its own self-serving agenda. No matter what
country we talk about "the government's" main
objective is to preserve its power over the masses.
This is why the money goes to the military and not
to the general public.... when the people turn
against their government, the government can use
the military to suppress the people trying to
destroy them. We see this in almost all the poorer
less developed nations.

The other purpose of the WAR agenda, is to keep all
the young, healthy, strong men and women who
join the military, pre-occupied with their duty in
another country. They are also exposed to very
toxic weapons of war like depleted uranium, etc.

The only reason the developed nations haven't gone
all-out against their people, is because they are
accomplishing their tyranny in a slow, methodical
manner. Gun control legislation, limiting our rights
to protest, controlling science (eg. labelling BSE
infectious when it's not), spending a billion dollars
to protect the G20 leaders from the common
people, passing legislation allowing them to control
and define our very existence under law.

"The Government" doesn't care about us, because it
is not capable of feelings (sounds like an Ikea
commercial), but it's true. If your salary comes
from the public funds/taxes collected by the
government of the day... then, generally, the
survival of "the government" is more important than
the survival of your neighbour.

If the cattle industry, or any industry for that
matter, cannot survive on its own without constant
government programs to prop it up.... what's the
point of staying in the business.

The latest program where-in the gov. is going to
give packers 31 dollars to help off-set the removal
of SRMs, in hopes that dollars will trickle down to
the cattle producers, is another fine example of
government self-preservation. The power of the
packers out-weighs the power of the cattle
producers.

This is the end of my rant.

[SADIE]

Kathy---Two good "rants". Traceability is a way to control "WHO and Who Cannot own Cattle"----------BINGO

The area I now ranch/farm in is Central Saskatchewan now. There are many community pastures in the area. Most cow-calf operators are grain farmers and run the 50-80 cow-calf herds and need the PFRA pastures to remain mixed.

I hope you appreciate why I took my case to the Oral Tribunal Hearing now. This case stood up for many of the smaller cow-calf operators that until this happening didn't even know the difference between the CFIA and the CCIA. PFRA pasture managers are now putting the word out in force. There numbers are way down below limit and more and more talk of these producers selling off "calf & cow this fall". A bit stronger price this fall will expediate the movement.

Too much regulation. They are farmers/ranchers and not bookkeepers. Already pastures (non-farmable) are sitting idle.

Now hearing the issue of Mandatory deregistering RFID ear-tags---Like show in recent Western Producer.-----Goodbye cow-herd.

PFRA pastures might as well turn into campgrounds. Pasture managers can become Part attendants.

My rant for the day