PR War

[rodb]

We are loosing the PR war on C-18 because we the "silent majority" are sitting back letting the CWB, NFU and their firends beat us in the media.

Start writing Senators from your province with positive well thought stories about how it will effect your farm. This gives Conservative senators ammunition to counteract the social babble from the opposition. It is never to late to change a few minds and get this thing done so that we aren't waiting a year from now for some court case to be done.

[farmaholic]

Rational positive thinking

[rodb]

I need to use spell check but we can no longer be quiet.

[stubblejumper]

How many senators will want to go down in history as being the ones to condone an illegal act.

[riders2010]

Possibly alot more than the ones that support putting farmers in jail for selling their own wheat abroad.

[malta]

The best thing we can do is continue encouraging
our MPs and any senators we know. I am
hopeful that in less than 7 days we will be able
to sent heartfelt thank yous to the CPC,Ritz,
Harper our MP and many others.

[gregpet]

When c-18 receives royal assent and the crazy 8 directors are removed will the CWB still be fighting and/or will the friends
of the CWB have their funding cut off?

[per]

Here is my Senator letter.

December 7, 2011

Senator Elaine McCoy, QC
579-F Centre Block
Ottawa, ON
K1A 0A4

Dear Senator,

In a recent visit to your office we had a conversation regarding the future of the Canadian Wheat Board. The Government of Canada has introduced a bill to remove the monopoly of the CWB. As a Western Canadian Farmer I am ecstatic that Agriculture Minister Ritz has taken up a cause near and dear to my heart. I truly believe in the Democracy and the Freedom that comes from a Free Market.

The CWB is everything that is not included in Free Market Democracy. All of the reasons the CWB was created concluded with the end of WWII except the unwritten cheap food policy of the Government of Canada. The CWB did not affect the freedom of farmers in British Columbia, Ontario, Quebec or the Maritimes to market their grain as they saw fit. Maybe if it extended to those Provinces we would not finally be free from its authority as it would at least be applied evenly across all who grow wheat and malt barley in this country.

Canola, Feed Grains, Pulses, Oats and Rye are all marketed outside of the CWB. We have a variety of methods to find buyers for these products especially with the advent of instant market information and communications via the internet. Large lots are not necessary in order to find a home for your grain. We often sell one truckload at a time, picked up on the farm of origin, to mills and crushers in both Canada and the United States. If you are not large enough to have one load to sell I would argue you are not a farmer but if that is the case we also share loads with neighbors. When it is going from Calgary to Eugene Oregon the neighbors can be hundreds of miles apart and still be able to make it work.

I am not arguing against Pools. The Bean growers in Southern Alberta subscribe to a private pool to market their Beans. I am told that ninety five percent of those farmers belong to the Pool and the other five percent are happily marketing their own product. A voluntary CWB could still be well subscribed and if they are the market geniuses they would have us believe, we will all be there looking for the best value for our products. As it is, the Wheat prices across the Montana and North Dakota Boarders have been consistently above ours over the years.

The Directors and Chairman Oberg of the CWB try to spin this as a fairness issue and how we are better off with the CWB. They are unwilling to put the necessary time and effort into creating a Dual system of Pooling by a voluntary CWB instead using an all or none attitude. This will result in the failure of the Agency which will be the real tragedy. Failure doesn’t have to be an option but is a Choice of the current Board. Driving a load of Designated grain across the US boarder without an expensive permit will land a farmer in jail. My neighbor and several others have experienced time behind bars for moving their own grain across the Boarder into Montana. We can move any number of other grains and oilseeds across freely but the CWB causes a regulatory burden that will end in jail time or suppressed value, take your choice. No one knows for sure what will happen with prices, marketing, and with the Pooling subscription. All I can offer you is that my wife’s Grandfathers name is in one of those books in the Peace Tower so we can have Freedom and Democracy. The CWB is neither.

As a Lawyer I am sure you have fought for justice and Freedom. The CWB creates a culture of suppression and circumvents Democracy. With the Off Board grains we are free to market outside of their umbrella we have the choice of using several large Multi National companies or conversely several independent brokers or making contact with the end user ourselves. All that is required for access is a telephone to make any of these choices happen. All I ask of the CWB is for it to become one of the many choices and not be a roadblock to the others.

Thank you for your interest. I know you will investigate all sides of this issue and I hope you will conclude that the CWB could live on only as a dual market desk. If the CWB continues the All or Nothing campaign then I would rather have Nothing.

Yours truly,

[wilagro]

You know per...your letter is polite, to the point and would make perfect sense except for ONE thing.

Ritz and Harper have made it pretty clear that by removing ALL elected BOD members and have or will strip the CWB of most of its other regulatory functions except for the buying and trading of wheat and edible/brewable barley, that the CWB will be a shell of its former self. Any positive influence that the current CWB had over grain transportation, grain car allocations, freight rate structure and tariffs will be LOST. Farmers will have LESS control of their marketing in some ways than they do NOW.

[vvalk]

Wilagro. We have zero control now. You make the
assumption that the board is working on your
behalf. You think that the board is working behalf
of your best interests. I would argue they work on
behalf of their customers, those buying the wheat
therefore against the farmers interests. Why else
would the PRO for #1 wheat be under $6. This is
an avg price and they are 40% sold. This must
mean they plan to sell the remaining 60% in the
$4 range. Stubble. If the conservatives are doing
something so illigal why didn't the judge stop
them. He made it VERY clear that the legislation
could continue. So what,that it went against the
spirit of the former legislation. It's not like some
higher power made this legislation, it was put in
by Ralph Goodale. What makes you think that a
farmer vote can control the legislation process.
Talk about anarchy if that was to set a precedent,
therefore the judge could not do anything about it.

[vvalk]

Wilagro and stubble. So according to your
thinking on 47.1, all a gov't has to do is attach a
section to all legislation that you have to have a
plebiscite to change any act In the future? What's
your thoughts on this?

[vvalk]

Separating the wheat from the chaff in CWB
debate
 
 
By Les MacPherson, The StarPhoenixDecember
10, 2011
 
 
Comparisons of the Harper government to a
dictatorship would be funny if they didn't trivialize
the horrors of dictatorships.

The Conservatives are getting it this time for
dismantling the Canadian Wheat Board monopoly
in violation of a court ruling. Except there is no
ruling. Rather, the Federal Court issued a
declaration, which, apparently, is quite a different
thing from a ruling.

The presiding judge said the government is acting
illegally but, also, that he is not going to do
anything about it. He could have ordered a
binding referendum by farmers on the Wheat
Board's future, as the law strictly requires, but he
very deliberately did not.

That probably is because the illegality here is the
product of a perverse technicality bestowed by a
Liberal government, since voted out. Among the
Liberals' regrettable legacies is a Wheat Board
Act that says, in effect, that Parliament cannot
change the Wheat Board Act. But the act is
entirely a creation of Parliament. To give farmers,
or any other interest group, supremacy over
Parliament and its acts would not only be absurd,
but undemocratic in the extreme.

Had the court issued an order in this case, it
would have invited more of the same. The
governing Conservatives could then make it illegal
for future governments to resurrect the long gun
registry, say, without a vote by duck hunters. They
could bring in legislation forbidding future
governments from interfering with oilsands
development without the approval of oil
companies. They could close down the CBC and
require a vote by private broadcasters to bring it
back. We then would hear quite a different tune
from those who now, in defence of the Wheat
Board, embrace exactly this kind of nonsense.

Likewise overlooked by defenders of the Wheat
Board, as well as by the courts, is the larger
public interest. This is not an issue of concern to
only farmers. They might be the only ones directly
affected by the Wheat Board monopoly, but they
do not enforce it. Rather, it is the justice system
that fines and imprisons those dissidents who
illegally sell their wheat to the highest bidder.
Since the justice system belongs to all of us, we
all should have a say on how it is used.

And so we do. In this case, we elected a majority
government that openly campaigned against the
Wheat Board monopoly. That's about as
democratic as it gets. What is undemocratic is
letting farmers or any other interest group tell an
elected Parliament what to do. What is perverse is
using freedom and democracy and now the courts
as sticks to beat on farmers who only want to
work the free market like everyone else in the
country.

So twisted are Harper's critics that they would
have honest farmers thrown in jail for exercising
rights they themselves take for granted, just to
make a debating point.

Lawrence Martin, a national columnist wellknown
for his loathing of the Harper Conservatives,
accuses them of using the tactics of a banana
republic. His hyperbole is an insult to those who
have known the brutality of a real banana
republics. Harper was elected to give western
farmers marketing freedom. Now he's going to do
it. The folks in real banana republics are dying for
a chance of such governance.

Just as theatrically indignant was the Liberal MP
who said of the Harper Conservatives, "They'll
stop at nothing!" Never mind that we have seen
quite clearly where they will stop. The
Conservatives will stop at prosecuting farmers for
violating a Soviet-style monopoly. If there is a
better stopping place, I can't think of it.

Most inflammatory of the Conservatives' critics is
NDP MP Pat Martin. His complaints about
Harper's "jackboots" invite comparisons with the
Nazi Gestapo. This for limiting debate in
Parliament on a budget that was just debated
from coast to coast during a 35-day election
campaign. Everything to be said about the budget
has been said, repeatedly. To claim there has not
been enough debate is like comparing closure in
Parliament with Nazi death camps.

What Martin and his comrades in opposition really
don't like is to see is Stephen Harper keeping his
promises. It's driving them crazy.

[pgluca]

vvalk, That is an excellent description of events. We need more writers like Les MacPherson in the western media, and more people to actually read what he wrote. Thank you for the post.

[sumdumguy]

If we let judges run the country, we are in big
trouble. Governments are elected to make the
rules, not some appointed politico. Democracy is
at stake.

Get going guys, hit the press, make a splash and
make the cameras follow you instead of the
loonie tunes. A convoy is needed now.

[Burbert]

Ya lets let the rule of the jungle apply
in future. Only big dogs are allowed to
play and git there way. My way er the
highway. Greed is good! Shoot shovel
and shut up if'n yer not on side yer off
side, get ready ta be buried. Chislers
and marketeers rule. I/we kin run the
world from our home PC and tech gadgets,
insteada wankin while driving our
tracktor! Hey guys/gals, here is some
advice fer yeah, wait for it, wait for
it, DON'T EAT THE YELLOW SNOW!!!!!