Crow?

[Burbert]

REMEMBER folks, the Harpie is building a
whole buncha new prisons. So it will be
very important that they don't sit vacant.
Lottsa room fer political prisoners that
don't tow the government line. Cud be the
end of democracy as we know it today..
What duh yeah think????????

[charliep]

malleefarmer

The issue on Crow was it applied to crops (read raw material) but not processed/value added products. As an example, crow subsidized the export of barley but resulted in higher feed barley prices to the livestock sector. Just to get some of the guys blood boiling, it subidized the exporting of jobs and tax revenue to other parts of the world - not a good expenditure of tax payers dollars. It was part of what Canada gave up in trade negotiations at that point in time in the mid 1990's.

What would the world be like if crow benefit were still here? Suspect value added wouldn't be occurring here to the extent it is now (particularly canola and livestock recognizing the pain in the latter over the past 8 to 10 years because of other factors). As an economist, the crow benefit entitlement would have got built into land values - some here would have had a higher net worth. New entrants in the past 15 years or farms that have expanded wouldn't be any better off. This was what the payout mid 1990's was meant to offset.

[wilagro]

The Crow payout was peanuts...it should have been ten times as much as it was, if not more. The economic hit to the farmer was huge as the freight charges dumped on the producer were excessive.

Any producer who lived far from the nearest export or processing point got little for his grain after freight was deducted. It made a dramatic change in the way farmers grew grain and in some cases the whole farm production was shifted to growing feed grains or livestock production. The final mail in the coffin to the small grain farmer was the extensive railway abandonment policy which has pretty well been completed by now.

The Alberta government spent millions of dollars lobbying for the Crow to end knowing full well of the problems that this would cause for farmers.

[FarmRanger]

Had the CWB single desk ended at the same
time as the crow, we would have undoubtedly
seen development of domestic processing of
board grains in western Canada. Unfortunately
the CWB policy of socking it to anyone who
wanted to develop any value added industry here
had the effect of driving away domestic
processing.

It's the "us" versus "them" mentality that shrinks
and weakens the entire industry.

[Hopperbin]

Hey mallie what is the average rail worker earnings per year in Australia?
An retired one here told me 108 thousand dollars now. Also the same as mine workers. Just wondering how us Canadians compare on the wage scale.
Seems like everyone and their dog is going on strike lately.

[LWeber]

QUOTE
The Crow payout was peanuts...it should have been ten times as much as it was, if not more.
UNQUOTE
____________________________________

Jean Luc Pepin wanted to pay out 10-13 times more than Goodale did. Charlie Mayer wanted to pay out 5-7 times more than Goodale did.

The NFU - SWP - AWP - MPE all killed the larger payout...

Were you one of the men that was on the weekend plane to Ottawa to derail Pepin's plan Wilagro?

Are these men accountable today?

Do you find it ironic that the same groups that were opposed to the Crow Payout are no longer in existence today. Those that are still around are opposing this CWB change too.

How different would the landscape be today with a 13 billion dollar Crow payout in 1982/83?

[TOM4CWB]

LWeber,

You know why not in 82-83... THE CWB.

The CWB would have been gone by 1995... and the pools knew it.

Imagine... truly how many billions... the CWB has cost western Canada since 1983.

30 years wandering in the wilderness!

Chairman Oberg... sayiing the land of 'milk and honey'... has big bad evil global multi-nationals... who will beat us growers down to a pulp!

Strange how the CWB uses these same grain partners daily... to sell our grain to NOW!!!

How Ironic!

It is truly staggering!!!

[notaredneck]

Wow yes I agree paying twice the freight rate is a good thing!