Directional Levy

[rkaiser]

As most of your post concerns ABP/CCA grassfarmer, I wont' argue.

I would like to discuss democratic policy in our industry however and how far out of touch the current ABP/CCA system is.

Taxes are a form of levy - are they not? When the government of Canada or the government of Alberta collects Tax, the party's that have shown they have a certain amount of public support receive some of that tax money to operate. We may not have the perfect democracy here in Canada but it is a hell of a lot better than most countries in the world. This sharing of funds with party's that do not tow the ruling party line is what makes government accountable (or at least party accountable).

We have nothing like this with ABP/CCA. The levy (tax) goes in to the one party coffers and is dealt with as this small and often arrogant group feel right.

What I am trying to suggest is a more democratic model for the levy (tax) which I do feel is necessary for our "Cattle Industry".

I do not agree with the current model any more than you do grassfarmer, but see potential for groups like Canada Gold or even the Alberta Cattle Feeders Association to help the entire cattle industry with money from a levy.

I do not believe we will see the levy removed. We can either keep paying the boys over at ABP/CCA to spend it foolishly suing or smooshing Americans, or we can challenge the government to allow us choice.

If you think that all organisations need to be member organisations grassfarmer -- I will have to agree to disagree.

[grassfarmer]

Fair enough, my idea of voluntary membership funded organisations may be idealistic. I agree it will be a big enough challenge to get any of the levy refundable, or directable by producers and that scrapping the levy all together is unlikely to happen.
If that is the situation how do you address my earlier question of whether ABP would remain the default recipient of levy funding in the case of producers who choose not to redirect their levy?

[rkaiser]

Good question grassfarmer. Don't have any suggestions. I assume that there will be die hard ABP/CCA folks that will choose to stay with the status quo ---- Hell old farmers_son might even throw in an extra buck a head just to help pay for the office space and the board table that rivals any lawyers office in downtown Calgary.

I might say that leftover funds from those who do not chose an organisation get split between the representative groups in a fair way. Maybe go by the previous years monetary direction.