http://www.nationalpost.com/todays-paper/Wheat%2BBoard%2Bframe%2Bmind/5787151/story.html
<b>The Wheat Board frame of mind</b>
Lorne Gunter, National Post · Nov. 30, 2011 | Last Updated: Nov. 30, 2011 3:09 AM ET
The Canadian Wheat Board's iron-fisted control over Prairie wheat and barley sales finally came to an end Monday evening when the House of Commons voted 153-120 to end the CWB's monopoly. The bill to increase producers' marketing choice now moves to the Senate, where it is expected to become law by Christmas. By the summer of 2012, farmers of wheat and barley in the three Prairie provinces and northeastern B.C. should have the same freedom to sell their own grain to whomever they please as their counterparts in Ontario and Quebec have enjoyed for years.
The board still has its passionate defenders, to be sure. But the defenders seem stuck in an ideological time warp. Consider the reaction of board chairman Allen Oberg: "We cannot sit idly by while this government sacrifices farmers' interests to those of giant American grain corporations."
Really? That's your best shot - anti-American, anti-corporate, Depression-era fearmongering? It's so outmoded, it's almost precious, like some museum relic crafted in a superstitious time to ward off evil spirits.
It's also straight out of Socialism 101: The freedom of the individual must be curtailed for the good of the collective. Farmers in a free country must be compelled to sell their wheat and barley through the CWB for the good of all farmers. Grain on the Prairies must be pooled with the CWB so that lessefficient growers and farmers who can't be bothered learning how to master free-market grain sales nonetheless receive the same price as their more-efficient neighbours.
But as that outdated approach to grain sales dies a much deserved death, it's important to reflect on just how abusive the board has been in defending its monopoly over the years.
I once interviewed a grain farmer from Russell, Man., Glen Pizzey, who not only grew various grains on his 1,500-acre farm, but also ran a milling operation making flour and cereals. He won't mill wheat or barley, though, because if he wanted to use his own wheat from his own bins, he couldn't do it without first selling the grain to the board, then buying it back at a premium. To make matters even more absurd, under board rules, he couldn't just take the grain 30 metres from his bins to his mill; he had to put it in trucks, drive it 15 kilometres to the nearest grain elevator, sell it to the board, pay the elevator company a processing fee, then drive it 15 km back.
And if the board wasn't buying the kind of grain Pizzey wanted to mill that week, he would have been prevented from using it, even if his granaries were stuffed full of it.
The board later relaxed some of these rules, but only reluctantly. It never fully supported the idea of farmers using their own grain in their own mills.
Then there was the predawn raid on Norm and Edith Desrochers' Baldur, Man., farm. Operating on a tip that the Desrochers planned to drive a load of their barley to a mill in North Dakota without first seeking the CWB's permission, five Mounties and 10 customs agents crashed into the Desrochers home, disconnected the family phone, tossed Norm and his son Clayton into a police cruiser (despite having no warrant to do so) and proceeded to look high and low for the contraband grain. In Canada! Over the right to sell crops!
But perhaps the most famously abusive treatment was of Lyleton, Man., barley farmer Andy McMechan. For the crime of hauling 50 bushels of his own grain to the United States - the supposedly sinister "American grain corporations" were paying nearly $6 a bushel at the time, while the board was paying $1.52 - Mr. McMechan spent 155 days in jail, 47 days in court and was strip-searched nearly 50 times. For his court appearances, he was often led into the courtroom in handcuffs and shackles.
Admittedly, these are all older cases now. But they nonetheless illustrate the mentality of those who would maintain the CWB monopoly. Under this view, the practice of lashing all farmers to the same mast so that good and bad ones get the same price for their grain is so sacred that it must be enforced with SWAT teams.
The sooner such thinkers lose control over Prairie farmers the better.
lgunter@shaw.ca
<b>The Wheat Board frame of mind</b>
Lorne Gunter, National Post · Nov. 30, 2011 | Last Updated: Nov. 30, 2011 3:09 AM ET
The Canadian Wheat Board's iron-fisted control over Prairie wheat and barley sales finally came to an end Monday evening when the House of Commons voted 153-120 to end the CWB's monopoly. The bill to increase producers' marketing choice now moves to the Senate, where it is expected to become law by Christmas. By the summer of 2012, farmers of wheat and barley in the three Prairie provinces and northeastern B.C. should have the same freedom to sell their own grain to whomever they please as their counterparts in Ontario and Quebec have enjoyed for years.
The board still has its passionate defenders, to be sure. But the defenders seem stuck in an ideological time warp. Consider the reaction of board chairman Allen Oberg: "We cannot sit idly by while this government sacrifices farmers' interests to those of giant American grain corporations."
Really? That's your best shot - anti-American, anti-corporate, Depression-era fearmongering? It's so outmoded, it's almost precious, like some museum relic crafted in a superstitious time to ward off evil spirits.
It's also straight out of Socialism 101: The freedom of the individual must be curtailed for the good of the collective. Farmers in a free country must be compelled to sell their wheat and barley through the CWB for the good of all farmers. Grain on the Prairies must be pooled with the CWB so that lessefficient growers and farmers who can't be bothered learning how to master free-market grain sales nonetheless receive the same price as their more-efficient neighbours.
But as that outdated approach to grain sales dies a much deserved death, it's important to reflect on just how abusive the board has been in defending its monopoly over the years.
I once interviewed a grain farmer from Russell, Man., Glen Pizzey, who not only grew various grains on his 1,500-acre farm, but also ran a milling operation making flour and cereals. He won't mill wheat or barley, though, because if he wanted to use his own wheat from his own bins, he couldn't do it without first selling the grain to the board, then buying it back at a premium. To make matters even more absurd, under board rules, he couldn't just take the grain 30 metres from his bins to his mill; he had to put it in trucks, drive it 15 kilometres to the nearest grain elevator, sell it to the board, pay the elevator company a processing fee, then drive it 15 km back.
And if the board wasn't buying the kind of grain Pizzey wanted to mill that week, he would have been prevented from using it, even if his granaries were stuffed full of it.
The board later relaxed some of these rules, but only reluctantly. It never fully supported the idea of farmers using their own grain in their own mills.
Then there was the predawn raid on Norm and Edith Desrochers' Baldur, Man., farm. Operating on a tip that the Desrochers planned to drive a load of their barley to a mill in North Dakota without first seeking the CWB's permission, five Mounties and 10 customs agents crashed into the Desrochers home, disconnected the family phone, tossed Norm and his son Clayton into a police cruiser (despite having no warrant to do so) and proceeded to look high and low for the contraband grain. In Canada! Over the right to sell crops!
But perhaps the most famously abusive treatment was of Lyleton, Man., barley farmer Andy McMechan. For the crime of hauling 50 bushels of his own grain to the United States - the supposedly sinister "American grain corporations" were paying nearly $6 a bushel at the time, while the board was paying $1.52 - Mr. McMechan spent 155 days in jail, 47 days in court and was strip-searched nearly 50 times. For his court appearances, he was often led into the courtroom in handcuffs and shackles.
Admittedly, these are all older cases now. But they nonetheless illustrate the mentality of those who would maintain the CWB monopoly. Under this view, the practice of lashing all farmers to the same mast so that good and bad ones get the same price for their grain is so sacred that it must be enforced with SWAT teams.
The sooner such thinkers lose control over Prairie farmers the better.
lgunter@shaw.ca
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