"A disproportionate amount of this space has been devoted over the years to the Canadian Wheat Board controversy starting long before it was much of a controversy. AGRIWEEK has supported a free market for over 30 years and a dual market for at least 20 years. It railed against the obscene Goodale amendments which imparted an unprecedented and possibly illegal status on the Board as immune to government supervision but enjoying unlimited government finan-cial support. We applauded the heroic but until now futile efforts of free-market-minded western farmers to get out from under the Liberal-intensified monopoly. It urged the Conservative government to take bigger chances than it was prepared to take to erase this odious monopoly. It is the case that the monopoly could have been removed while the Conservative government was in a minority. The opposition, for all its current pants-wetting, would never have precipitated an election over the Wheat Board issue.
Every action of every majority government is arbitrary because it does not require compliance of the opposition. The complaints that the Harper government is a ‘steamroller’ are ridiculous. If debate had been allowed to continue for five years the outcome would not have been different. Cutting off debate was especially advisable because the opposition did not and does not know what it is talking about. When you have NDPQ members pontificating about western grain marketing it is obligatory to pull the plug.
Now that victory is at hand it is not very sweet. The abuse of fundamental civil, commercial and property rights that was caused by the Wheat Board system is a blot on this country, comparable to the forced isolation of Japanese dur-ing the Second World War and the placing of recent immigrants from Austria-Hungary into prison camps during the First War. In a time when legal protections and societal considerations of other personal rights, especially homosexual and various other small-minority rights, have reached such obscene extremes, it is appalling that there is still anyone who cannot make the connection to the Wheat Board monopoly.
The part of the Wheat Board controversy that has never been resolved is the notion that if the Board system benefits producers, the removal of individual and property rights is justified. The Goodale formula for a farmer-elected board of directors was based on the naïve and mentally-challenged idea that farmer “control” would satisfy most or all farm-ers, including those ideologically persuaded that they should be able to sell their own grain. The monopoly Wheat Board system never produced superior returns because it was intrinsically unable to do so, but even if it had it would still be totally indefensible on personal liberty grounds.
There is only one parallel to the Wheat Board system in any jurisdiction, and it is represented by the provisions for the takeover and management by civil servants of the estates of the mentally incompetent. All the wheat and barley growers of western Canada were in effect declared incapable of managing their affairs, requiring that their independ-ence be removed and authority over their property be given over to a central, legally-backed authority. The Wheat Board monopoly created a trustee system over wheat and barley assets. Goodale, the pompous elitist, had to have an unimaginable contempt for the intelligence and competence of western farmers as a class. The average farm in Cana-da has assets of $1.5 million. But for his handsome MP salary and pension, Goodale had no chance to be a millionaire. The average farmer is financially more successful than Goodale.
The Goodale version of the Wheat Board was the imposed, mandated successor to the failed prairie wheat pools. The pools collapsed one by one because the farmers elected to run them were not capable of running them. Years lat-er the reason that progressive, entrepreneurial farmers seldom ran for election as Wheat Board directors is that they understood their limitations. History has evidence that farmers cannot run corporations and corporations cannot run farms. Farmer “control” (not to say “ownership”) of the Wheat Board was a profound fraud and a total misunder-standing of what democracy is and what it can be expected to do.
We are all done with this. It has been a monumental waste of time, effort and creative energy. The Wheat Board does not deserve to survive in any form or permutation, which statement alone is a departure from AGRIWEEK’s long-standing position. The monopoly Board leaves nothing behind that is useful in a contemporary competitive environ-ment. This state has come about because the elected directors of torpedoed every chance that the successor Board had of survival.
Onward and upward."
Morris, you have done a great job... Thankyou and all the best in 2012!
Every action of every majority government is arbitrary because it does not require compliance of the opposition. The complaints that the Harper government is a ‘steamroller’ are ridiculous. If debate had been allowed to continue for five years the outcome would not have been different. Cutting off debate was especially advisable because the opposition did not and does not know what it is talking about. When you have NDPQ members pontificating about western grain marketing it is obligatory to pull the plug.
Now that victory is at hand it is not very sweet. The abuse of fundamental civil, commercial and property rights that was caused by the Wheat Board system is a blot on this country, comparable to the forced isolation of Japanese dur-ing the Second World War and the placing of recent immigrants from Austria-Hungary into prison camps during the First War. In a time when legal protections and societal considerations of other personal rights, especially homosexual and various other small-minority rights, have reached such obscene extremes, it is appalling that there is still anyone who cannot make the connection to the Wheat Board monopoly.
The part of the Wheat Board controversy that has never been resolved is the notion that if the Board system benefits producers, the removal of individual and property rights is justified. The Goodale formula for a farmer-elected board of directors was based on the naïve and mentally-challenged idea that farmer “control” would satisfy most or all farm-ers, including those ideologically persuaded that they should be able to sell their own grain. The monopoly Wheat Board system never produced superior returns because it was intrinsically unable to do so, but even if it had it would still be totally indefensible on personal liberty grounds.
There is only one parallel to the Wheat Board system in any jurisdiction, and it is represented by the provisions for the takeover and management by civil servants of the estates of the mentally incompetent. All the wheat and barley growers of western Canada were in effect declared incapable of managing their affairs, requiring that their independ-ence be removed and authority over their property be given over to a central, legally-backed authority. The Wheat Board monopoly created a trustee system over wheat and barley assets. Goodale, the pompous elitist, had to have an unimaginable contempt for the intelligence and competence of western farmers as a class. The average farm in Cana-da has assets of $1.5 million. But for his handsome MP salary and pension, Goodale had no chance to be a millionaire. The average farmer is financially more successful than Goodale.
The Goodale version of the Wheat Board was the imposed, mandated successor to the failed prairie wheat pools. The pools collapsed one by one because the farmers elected to run them were not capable of running them. Years lat-er the reason that progressive, entrepreneurial farmers seldom ran for election as Wheat Board directors is that they understood their limitations. History has evidence that farmers cannot run corporations and corporations cannot run farms. Farmer “control” (not to say “ownership”) of the Wheat Board was a profound fraud and a total misunder-standing of what democracy is and what it can be expected to do.
We are all done with this. It has been a monumental waste of time, effort and creative energy. The Wheat Board does not deserve to survive in any form or permutation, which statement alone is a departure from AGRIWEEK’s long-standing position. The monopoly Board leaves nothing behind that is useful in a contemporary competitive environ-ment. This state has come about because the elected directors of torpedoed every chance that the successor Board had of survival.
Onward and upward."
Morris, you have done a great job... Thankyou and all the best in 2012!
Comment