Any suggestions?

[cswilson]

Here's my ABP speech. Cuttin it loose tomorrow night.

Any help would be appreciated.

ABP candidate speech ------- Randy Kaiser

Good evening everyone, and thank you all for coming out. This is obviously a time when we all need to be here with our opinions and suggestions.

My name is Randy Kaiser. I am co-owner and managing partner of CrossVenture Livestock at Crossfield Alberta. We raise purebred Welsh Black and Galloway breeding stock, and are part of a Complimentary Vertical Market where we put beef on the plates of high end Calgary restaurants and specialty meat markets. I call this market complimentary because it involves every aspect of the industry from conception to consumption, while allowing each link in the chain a fair value for their input without the concern of one making money on the others back.

Something I would like to see more of in the conventional market.

I am proud of the fact that the cattle industry has survived and will continue to survive as one of the last truly free enterprise systems in the world, however right now that system is broke. When one part of this industry is seeing record profits while another is struggling to survive, there is a problem. BSE or no BSE, something needs to change. I am not anti Packer. We need packers. Everything the packers have done has been legal and acceptable. Ethical – well I don’t know about that. If you were to consider the reaction of some other industry where one segment was profiting at record levels while another strives for survival; would there be no noise?

I am Pro producer but I also believe there is room in this industry for everyone to make a decent living, including producers, packers, and retailers. I believe we can make changes without damaging relations between producers and packers, without going back and laying more blame, and without a cold shoulder to any more suffering producers in this country. I can’t listen to another person say “that guy that went down was a bad manager”.

This situation came to us without control, and it is up to us to control it.

I like to say that I think about simple big picture ideas rather than the quick fix. If we have our eyes on a common goal in the end, which is, at the moment, survival, and then sustainablity for our ENTIRE industry, we will find the short term answers easier to come by.

As you may already know, I am one of the founding members of Beef Initiative Group Canada. I saw this as a way for immediate involvement in the issues surrounding BSE, and have no regrets. I continue to work with Cam Ostercamp, and see a lot of the first things we talked of as crucial to the Canadian Cattleman. We must reduce dependence on the American Market, and need more, “made in Canada” packing capacity with BSE testing if the customer asks for it. Beef Initiative Group recently became a member of the Canada Beef Export Federation, and I volunteered to sit as the representative at the September Annual meeting. BIG C has been in front of close to 10,000 western Canadian producers in the past few months with overwhelming support for their basic ideas.

I would like to share the work we have done with the folks at ABP, and find common ground to bring solutions to our dysfunctional marketplace.

Thank you for your time and good luck.

[amazed]

Best of luck to you Randy!

[whiteface]

You've always been good with words, Randy and anyone who has met you in person knows there is so much more to you on top of your ability for meaningful conversation. Best of luck and please let us know how it goes!

[kato]

Hear Hear!

[cakadu]

Best of luck Randy.

[farmers_son]

One comment about your speech... I believe there is genuine room to question whether what the packers have been doing is legal. We do have laws governing competition in this country and to my mind the packers clearly contravened those laws. The Parliamentary Committee was to look into this but maybe the packers are going to get away with their crimes against the industry.
In any event you did mention the packers and I am looking for that in every speech. I am in your zone and will consider marking an X beside your name. I wish you well as I wish all the candidates well.

[farmers_son]

How did the first meeting go Randy ? Lots of people attend ?

[cowman]

How did the packers break the law? There was a buyer and a seller, right?
There is no law in Canada about who can own cattle?
All these packers were doing is taking care of business within the laws of this country. I don't believe we should be down on any organization that is trying to make a profit?
The fault lies entirely with our government for not protecting the individual from exploitation?

[farmers_son]

See http://laws.justice.gc.ca/en/C-34/

Competition Act ( R.S. 1985, c. C-34 )

The Packers broke the laws of this country by conspiring to fix prices paid for fat cattle which goes way beyond the limits of acceptable business practice.

I do agree when you say the fault lies with our government for not protecting the individual from exploitation. The laws are in place but they are not enforced, especially when it involves U.S. firms.

Still a lack of enforcement does not make it right. The packers were involved in illegal price fixing which was to be looked into by the Parliamentary Committee. Can we count on the support of our beef organizations in order to pressure government to see that this Committee reconvenes before the 30 day deadline?

[farmers_son]

Farmer_son. Are we going to hear that question at one of the upcoming ABP meetings with a resolution attached?

Our first meeting at Sundre was well attended. Most said there were more people than the year before.

Started out fairly subdued with reports on accomplishments etc. Got a little quieter when I made my speech, and louder at the end when the discussion period got going.

Has anyone read the Technical commitee report where it was decided that environmental connections to BSE should be discarded?
I brought up this point for disscusion.
"What is it that ABP or Beef Producers anywhere can gain from discounting the work of a growing number of scientists concerning environmental links to BSE, while following experimentally unproven theories of BSE transmission through contminated feed?
The environmental theory gives us hope to prove BSE to be seen as a non-transmissible chemical imbalance affecting individual animals.
The theory that this industry has chosen to follow leaves us with more rules and trade regulations every day, which have succeeded in creating dysfunctional markets for beef around the world.
How can we simply ignore an alternative, which is about hope, and embrace something that is about nothing but destruction?

Couple guys jumped on me, while one fellow offered a resolution to revisit ABP's position.
PPPASSSSSSSSSED.

Anyone else have thoughts on this issue? Want to help out by bringing it up at future meetings, with more resolutions? Give me a call or email.
(403) 946 - 0228
rpkaiser@telusplanet.net

Thanks for all your help folks. This site is great, lets keep using it, if you don't bring your question out at one of the meeting farmer_son, I will. Is that not the purpose of representatives any group.

[farmers_son]

Heard you're speech was well received Randy.

[cowman]

What proof is there that Cargill/IBP/XL "conspired" to fix prices?...Do you have a smoking gun?
Do Esso and Shell "conspire" to raise gas prices every long weekend in the summer? Well how many inquiries have they had into that? And how many found them guilty?....None?
If Cargill decides 36 cents/lb. is what they will pay, why would IBP pay any more? In reality the packers have paid a lot more than they could probably have gotten away with?
Unless you have some hard evidence packers "conspired" to fix prices, then it would be an utter waste of time and money to pursue this?....Sort of like the Conservatives said? Do we really need to waste a few more million on another government excercise in futility?

[grassfarmer]

Damn straight we should bother cowman, the government has a responsibility to govern - in this case that means upholding the laws of the land - including the competition laws of the country. The industries future is in peril so I think the stakes are high enough.

[cowman]

But grassfarmer I don't think anyone broke any laws. If they did then by all means lets go to it!
I would think Cargill/IBP are smart enough that they can play the game within the rules? And that if the government had enough evidence that they had broke the rules, they would be charging them? We just don't see that?
Probably thirty years ago Burns, Intercon, and Canada Packers got charged and convicted of conspiring to fix prices on hogs. They had actual memos between the companies that proved they were conspiring! I really doubt there is that kind of evidence here?
When there are only two real players in the market and they have way more cattle than they need, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize they can pretty well pay whatever they want? That is not "conspiring to fix prices"?
It is like if you and I are the only two guys at an auction sale, that can bid on several of the same items. If you bid $10 why would I bid anymore...knowing that there is several of the identical items coming up...and you only need one?

[cowman]

Have heard a lot of talk about cattleman being the ones selling their cattle at these prices to the packers.
Let me get this straight - Packers offer a price, and all the feedlots with cattle to sell are competing for the opportunity to have some kill space. A kind of "reverse price auction" then takes place.
GIVE ME A BREAK.
To have this sort of bidding war, wouldn't the packers start the bid at close to their American boxed beef price less a reasonable profit and then have the boys underbid each other for a spot.
This is not happening!!!!!!!!
Packers set a price based on how much they feel they can get away with without the government coming down on them, and then let the feedlots out bid
each other by a cent or two, or maybe five, to prove "to the gullable" that their is no market manipulation.

Easier to figure out than a Canadian Government bailout program.