American group wins injunction to keep border closed to cattle

[15444]

grassguy,

I don't limit my hatred towards Eby, it goes for past CCA prez Neil Jahnke and Ian McKillop and his buddies at OCA. They all don't have a clue about what the majority of producers want, although they claim they do. An example?: McKillop came to the local cattlemen's meeting a few years ago and basically got his ass handed to him for spewing what he thought were the facts about the cattle industry in Ontario. At one point he lectured about 50 producers about sending their checkoff dollars in for cattle they sold in Manitoba and privately....he got laughed at a bit for that one.

The only guys who know what they want at any of the levels of the industry are the ones who are too busy working their asses off, trying to make their farm succeed, to waste their time with the bureaucratic nonsense of these organizations.

Eby gets his travel expenses paid for by the CCA. When he was part of OCA, I never saw the point of give himing $2.25 a head to go ramble the exact same damn speech across the province, and I still don't see a purpose to him at the federal level.

[cowsense]

15444.... talk about setting up a 360 degree firing squad. Your rant against Stan Eby and the CCA is totally disgusting and totally uncalled for. What have YOU ever done to improve our industry ! Feel free to disagree but do not run down the efforts made by thousands of voluntary members from right across Canada that give freely of their own time and resources (often at the expense of their own operations). We've got enough problems with R-calf without Canadians trying to rip our industry apart!!!

[15444]

Well cowsense, these guys could actually do the industry a long term favour and work towards dissolving some of these 'useless and inefficient' organizations? You go to each province and which group should you listen too?

I live in Ontario, but am occasionally interested in the positions of the Manitoba organizations. Sometimes I agree with KAP and sometimes with MCPA, but who should I actually listen to? Who is the actual representative of Manitoba producers?

I think this is one of the problems that confuses politicians. You need, at most, one group to represent all the producers in the province, something similar to Quebec. The main problem they all face in that each has their own agenda. They can agree on major things but then tear each other apart on the small crap. And that's when government just sits back and grins.

So what is their real purpose? Name a big thing, and I mean a real BIG thing, that CCA, OCA, OFA, NFU....etc etc have done in the last year? They talked to Bob Speller and now they talk to Andy Mitchell. They get a hand-out here, hand-out there, but nothing long term.

The whole bunch of them are more interested about how they can improve their membership/position today rather then the young pokes who are still going to be in this industry 40 years from now?....although with the help that is given, I am not sure if anyone will be able to correlate Canada and agriculture at all in 20 years.

What have I done for the industry? Given the years still ahead of me, all I can do at this point is basically keep optimistic and listen to everyone in the spectrum (more specifically the young) to figure out what exactly needs to happen when I hit the OCA and CCA boards. I am fiesty and very black and white on the issues so I don't take kindly to the 'hym and haw' crap that government (or anyone) feeds ALL these organizations EXCEPT Quebec, who actually grabs government by the nuts and squeezes.

If you need to think of something, think of this. Everytime your calves go through the sale ring, look at each one and let a little 'cha-ching' cash register sound go off in your head for each checkoff per head. Values vary. Alberta is $3.25 I think? Ontario is $2.25 right now, but they want to jump that up to $5.25. So at the current Ontario rate, for a herd of 30 who sells all their calves every year for 25 years, that represents $1687.50. My proposal? If I have to give the organizations that money, at least let me tell them which area I want it spent in. I'll gladly sign the entire sum over to BIG C or Rancher's Choice.

[cowman]

My own little rant: While I do not believe the ABP has a right to force a mandatory checkoff on my cattle...the fact is the Alberta government made it the law? The Alberta beef producers had a chance to scrap the mandatory checkoff in a democratic vote? 12% voted! And slightly less than 6% voted to retain the mandatory checkoff...so there it is! I consider it just another tax and the cost of doing business.
I do believe the ABP does not always work in my best interests, in fact quite often they work directly against my best interests! But having said that, I have never questioned the integrity of the men and women who are our ABP representatives? Might not agree with them at all but can respect that they believe what they are doing is the right thing! And who knows, maybe they're vision is the right one? My own ABP rep is a close friend, and while we agree to disagree about the ABP, I have never doubted his dedication to the cattle industry or his integrity.

[cowman]

Oops...that should read slightly more than 6% voted to retain the mandatory checkoff!

[cowman]

cowman, you and I agree on a lot of issues regarding ABP. I have always attended my zone meeting and voted for the candidates I felt would best serve the interests of the industry as a whole. If different candidates were elected, I realized that was the democratic process at work. No different than municipal, provincial or federal elections. When people choose to sit at home and not particiate in this process, they have abdicated their responsibility in my opinion. As far as government is concerned ABP represents the cow calf industry and of course now they have feeder reps. as well. If producers aren't happy with the decisions of the organization the place to change it is at the zone elections.
I know a former chairman of ABP very well, and have heard from him the efforts that he and others within the organization put forward regarding the counterveiling duties of a few years ago. After that initiative many feedlot operators received huge chunks of money back, so all the work of ABP isn't in vain.
I know that this latest issue with R-Calf has literally taken the heart and soul out of many folks in the industry, but cooler heads must prevail in order for people to get through this latest crisis.