Steamroller.

[wd9]

A posting from the steamroller site, i realize most real farmers who tried posting some facts can not see all the posts, don't ask how i was able to copy this:

Vanessa Hamilton
We need Prime Minister Harper out now. And it's people power that can kick him out. He is not obeying the law. He is removing the Oppositions' presence and power from Parliament. He is muting Canadians' voices and he is cutting us from the rest of the world. He is a dictator and he needs to be stopped. I'm not sitting around and watching our country become Syria. It's the start of the Occupy Revolution.
http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.thestar.com%2Fnews%2Fcana da%2Fsteveharper%2Farticle%2F825809--travers-changing-canada-one-backward-step-at-a-time&h=TAQGkznL4AQE1g-s6gpl8maALyE8BA-jOQ9kbKubT0rN7kA
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/steveharper/article/825809--travers-changing-canada-one-backward-
www.thestar.com
.
Like · Comment · Yesterday at 8:20am · .Susan Lintott Korneychuk and Cindy Woods like this..

David Falk So you wanna start a revolution now vanessa, your lucky you live in a free country where you can make your outrageous statements. You say you fight for democracy yet you want to force well over 20,000 farmers to sell their grain to one buyer (cwb ) when there are many buyers out there. Democracy when it suits you eh? Step back and look at the big picture, your losing all credibility.
Yesterday at 9:52am ·

1.Vanessa Hamilton David, as I get more involved in this I am prepared to be backlashed, labelled, name called, bullied etc. I feel so strongly about this that it doesn't bother me. I am looking at the bigger picture. What kind of government do we have when the Opposition doesn't have any respect for them? Last week we had a Liberal MP stick up for a NDP MP by calling Peter Kent a piece of shit.
Yesterday at 9:58am · 4.Frank Oslo I'm just glad I live in a country where I can make any statements! Our government is the farthest thing from a dictatorship that you will find.
Yesterday at 1:03pm · 1.Grant Williamson The government has declared itself above the law. The judge called Minister Ritz's actions "an affront to the rule of law". This is very serious. The goverment must obey the law in a democratic system. When it does not obey the law it is setting a very anti-democratic and dangerous precedent.
Yesterday at 1:31pm · 3.Cindy Woods Really? Then why did the government remove the elected directors of the Canadian Wheatboard without a democratic vote? That flies directly in the face of your last comment. We have a government run amok, and no-one seems able to stop the insanity. It's time to stand up!
Yesterday at 1:35pm · 3.Mylo Ross Been following this site for a while but never posted. Vanessa, if the conservatives were removed from parliament, who should govern this country?
Yesterday at 4:39pm.Grant Williamson It's not a question of who should govern the country. Anyone governing the country must respect the rule of law. That is just what the Conservatives are NOT doing.
Yesterday at 5:44pm · 3.Mylo Ross Grant, it may not be your question, but it is mine. Also i was asking Vanessa.
Yesterday at 6:41pm.Vanessa Hamilton The new government will represent the People and not corporations. This a fundamental reason why I am supporting the CWB. The CWB ensures that the power doesn't go to large corporations like Cargill. Second, the new government will look at redefining our monetary policy, meaning putting the money and power back to the People. (This also has to occur in other countries like the USA and countries in Europe.) Harper is not respecting the rule of the law. He's ruining our country. Check out the Occupy Canada page on Facebook.
22 hours ago · 1.Frank Oslo I require more information. Does this law eliminate the CWB? I was under the impression it just made it voluntary in certain parts of the country so it is the same all across canada now.
22 hours ago.Mylo Ross From what i understand the CWB only lost its legislation to be the only buyer of wheat of western cdn farmers. Single desk as its called. The CWB as a corp remains exactly as before.
21 hours ago.Grant Williamson That's not quite accurate. The single-desk means that the CWB was sole dealer (seller) of western Canadian wheat and barley - not a buyer. It was really a collective bargaining agent. Without the single-desk it's nothing but another broker. The CWB as a corp is fundamentally changed by the legislation.

The "new CWB" has lost the single-desk which is its principle value. Also, it is no longer controlled by a farmer elected board of directors and it has lost the authority to order rail cars for the use of farmers. That means everything is on a bid system which means the 2 railways will determine what it costs to move grain and who gets to move it when. Without the CWB individual farmers will be forced to negotiate directly with the railways. That's a huge loss of bargaining power for farmers - going from the group of the CWB to an individual. The alternative for farmers is to have a grain broker or handling company do their negotiating for them but that comes a price.

Brokers and the private trade have to take money out for their profits and shareholders. By law the CWB could not do this, so after it covered its operating cost it still returned more than 98% of sales revenue to farmers. That's gone now. The "new CWB" does not even have to provide an audited statement to farmers.

The only thing Ritz's transition panel got right was when it acknowledged that market power will be taken from farmers and given to other players in the system.
9 hours ago · 3.Mylo Ross Not my words, Wiki's. Perhaps you need to edit the opening paragraph for the CWB's wiki entry which says this:

The Canadian Wheat Board (French: Commission canadienne du blé) was established by the Parliament of Canada on 5 July 1935[1] as a mandatory producer marketing system for wheat and barley in Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and a small part of British Columbia. Although it is often called a monopoly, it is actually instead a monopsony since it is the only buyer of wheat and barley.

When it comes to selling, they are one of many, including right here in Canada. I find this quite interesting. So how did this benefit those farmers out there in the west if they still had to compete with all the sellers of the world?
9 hours ago.Grant Williamson Wiki simply has it wrong. The CWB is not a buyer.

The CWB is the only entity on the world market selling on the basis of quality to industrial scale processors. It's our niche market. But without the single-desk, that's gone. Australia used to sell based on quality when it had its own Wheat Board but their Wheat Board was removed. Now Australian grain isn't a reliable quality and the price premiums Australian farmers used to get are lost.

The benefit to western farmers of having a single-desk on the world market is that our CWB as the exclusive dealer is able to capitalize on our unique brand of grain and build a good reputation for it. It had the resources to do marketing and customer relations on a large scale in 70 countries. Something the individual just can't do (costs, time required, etc.) and something the private trade does not do because they are only interested in margins.

We produce about 20% of the world's grain and the CWB was able to meter that into the market so prices were not collapsed with more supply than the market could handle without lowering prices. This benefited western farmers directly and every other grain producer in the world indirectly by helping to keep prices stable (not great for speculators however).
8 hours ago · 1.Frank Oslo I'm still confused a little. If the CWB was the sole seller of Western Canadian barley and wheat wouldn't it have to be the sole buyer? Isn't part of the argument that all wheat and barley had to be sold to them?

I was under the impression that the elevator companies would be able to ask for trains like they do with canola, am I mistaken?

As far as my math goes Grant 2% on a $250 /tonne commodity means $5.00/tonne cost using the CWB to broker grain. Friends of mine are telling me that they use private brokers to sell grain outside of the board and are charged in the range of $2.00 /tonne.

I guess if you are saying that being able to market huge chunks of wheat into the world market at a time may provide an advantage to the buyers of that wheat I kind of get it.
8 hours ago.Grant Williamson The CWB is a sales agent. It sells grain on behalf of western farmers. It's a contract between myself, as a farmer, and the CWB as my sales agent. The CWB is not really buying my grain.

As to the cost per bushel or per tonne 14 international trade tribunals have examined that question and all of them have found that the CWB returns more money to farmers than the private trade does. This makes sense because the private trade must make a profit for its shareholders. The only shareholders in the CWB are farmers so they get all the profits returned directly to them. A broker doesn't return everything to farmers and they have to deal with the private grain handling companies and railways. They have less bargaining power than the single-desk CWB had.

All companies can ask for trains but it's a question of when and if they get them and their power to negotiate rates. The power to negotiate rates comes from the number of cars the company is ordering. The CWB had a lot of negotiating power because it moved so much grain. Now that power is going to be spread across the every grain handler so they all have less power and farmers aren't represented at all.

It's an advantage to both the seller and the buyer to be able to move large volumes of grain at a time. The buyer pays a premium to get a large quantity of grain that is a consistent quality - that's the quality premium the CWB got for farmers. Without the single-desk that's gone.
7 hours ago · 2.David Falk Hmm, seems that i've been blocked also
2 hours ago.Grant Williamson I can see your posts and you're still commenting. Obviously you haven't been blocked.
2 hours ago.Mylo Ross What do you mean blocked? Are people actually blocked? Come to think of it, it has been kinda one sided for a while now. Why aren't farmers from out there in the west posting?

Grant, over time here many have posted a lot of graphs and discussion about how the CWB averages far less than an open market price. Have they been wrong?
about an hour ago.Mylo Ross If a miller in canada can buy wheat from anyone in the world, how can you possibly say the CWB is the only seller?
about an hour ago.Grant Williamson The CWB is the only seller of high quality western Canadian grain. It's sold based on a certificate of quality and is the only seller to do that. That's why farmers get a quality premium from CWB sales and customers are assured that Canadian grain in their grain product like beer, pasta, bread, etc. is the best quality.
49 minutes ago.Grant Williamson I am a farmer from western Canada and I have used the CWB for many years.

The graphs you mention have all been from private brokers who stand to profit if the single-desk CWB is gone. More importantly, the graphs compare US spot prices with Canadian pooled prices. That's like comparing apples and orange. A spot price is a single price and point in time. A pooled price represents the full the value of the full crop over the year - that takes into account the high prices and the low prices. For me, as a farmer, it means I get the full value of my grain because it is part of a pool that is sold over the whole year. I get to benefit from all the high prices over the whole year. With canola, or other non-board grains, I only get one price one time - I don't get the value over the whole year like I do with a pooled price.
44 minutes ago.

[gregpet]

I have been banned for a while now but can still see all the comments. I guess
they cannot handle to many opposing opinions so they find it easier to block
some users.

Typical CWB tactic.

[wd9]

What is odd is if this is actually by the CWB, why haven't they shut it down?

[malleefarmer]

Australian wheat quality some say has actually improved as there is no blending anymore,because say at a 120,000 tonne recieval site there might be 20 buyers who demand recieve what they bought no more blending of lower quality with high and selling it as high.
Also more segregations have opened up again buyer demand special segregations at cetain sites and if warranted it will happen.

[FarmRanger]

Gregpet, you and many other farmers have been
blocked from the Stop the Steamroller Facebook
page.  You particularly were blocked  quite early,
not for profanity, and not for threatening other
posters.  Your crime was asking questions and
posting facts which didn't bolster the propaganda
that constituted the purpose of that page.  

I doubt you could actually still see all the posts
there, unless you logged out of your Facebook
account and came back anonymously.  Click on a
post that has 11 comments and you'll  only see 5.  
The others were likely farmers with inconvenient
truths, and/or questions.   If you were blocked
from posting, it is quite likely that you and others
were also barred from seeing the posts from
some of the more zealous anti-freedom people
there.  Did you see the posts from Debbie Rattai?

Quite simply, Stop The Steamroller was a $million
plus anti-Conservative political campaign aimed at
Ontario urbanites, but paid for out of the CWB
pool accounts.   On the Facebook page, yours, 
and  other farmer's inconvenient facts & questions
were systematically blocked from being seen by
the target audience.  
It was quite ironic that the people most affected by
the attempted halt of C18 were the very ones
whose voices were blocked.  Meanwhile, it
appeared that anybody else could post the most
extreme partisan political nonsense, as long as it
didn't contradict the CWB's anti-market freedom 
message.  Much like the flawed plebiscite, the
CWB had no interest in what farmers had to say
at the Stop the SteamRoller (STS) Facebook
page.

Simply put, STS was/is a partisan political effort,
but was paid for by western Canadian wheat and
barley farmers out of the pool accounts.   

[wd9]

Also posts take quite a while to show up. They are screened and only if contain no 'facts' or simply agree with the drone mentality, appear a while later.

It is quite disgusting what has been paid for by deducting our pool account to further the ideologies of the crazy 8.

[freewheat]

I think we made our points well. I was banned under two accounts about when Greg was. Like typical leftists, such as we have in todays parliament, losing is not their strong suit. But they have indeed lost...

[jimbobobaroo]

I have been banned too, now under a third ID they only
post about 1 out of every 3 comments I make if
worded very carefully. There is no discussion, only
one sided statements.

I have emailed maureen_fitzhenry@cwb.ca their media
relations contact and asked for the site to come down
it is a true embarrassment! Maybe Ian needs an email
too.

[wd9]

And on it goes:

Frank Oslo So if you average prices throughout the year how do you get the best price?. All prices move up and down in the markets I would think it logical to sell when you think the price is highest. I also think that it would be mathematically impo...ssible to get full value of your grain by averaging sales. I'm sure it would alleviate the concerns of selling at the lowest price, but limit your ability to sell at the highest, making your price, well to put it bluntly mediocre at best.See More
12 hours ago · LikeUnlike.Grant Williamson Pooling is not averaging. I'll repeat that 14 international trade challenges have we are getting premium prices.

This was in the Manitoba Co-Operator this August and explains things very well:

"A voluntary pool may sound like a good idea..., but it’s a non-starter. First, this has nothing to do with the board surviving as a sales agency. Assuming the pool could work, you wouldn’t necessarily need a wheat board to run it. All you’d need is a few people with computers, a spreadsheet program and a bank account. When you sold to a grain company, wheat board or otherwise, it would send the money to the pool, which would issue the initial payment, calculate the returns at the end of the crop year, and issue a final payment.

You could even run a pool for canola. In fact, that might work fairly well. There’s only one main grade, and canola is sold pretty much evenly through the crop year. Calculating representative returns would be reasonably straightforward.

Wheat is another matter. There are dozens of classes, grades and protein levels. This is where it gets tricky. Let’s assume that it’s been a good harvest year across the Prairies, with most wheat grading 1 CW or 2 CW, but you were one of the unlucky ones with a couple of showers at harvest and you pulled off a crop of 3 CW. However, the wheat board finds a market for a couple of cargoes in October and takes it all off your hands, selling it to a customer for $200 per tonne. No. 1 CW selling on the same day is fetching $250. Soon after, there are concerns about crop conditions in other countries and wheat prices rise sharply. For the entire crop year, No. 1 CW ends up selling for an average of $350. Should you only get $200 for your 3 CW, $150 per tonne or $4 per bushel less than your luckier neighbour with 1 CW?

What if the market went in the other direction, with your 3 CW getting $300 when it was sold but 1 CW averaging only $250 for the year? Should you get more for your lower-quality wheat? You would probably answer “no” to the first question and your neighbour with 1 CW would definitely answer “no” to the second.

Pooling is not averaging

However, because of the way the wheat board runs the pooling system, such situations almost never arise. That’s because while pooling is often referred to as “price averaging,” it’s not. In determining payments for each class or grade; the CWB doesn’t calculate the average selling price. It calculates the average “spread,” or difference between them, for the entire crop year. Otherwise, in order to be fair, it would have to sell one-twelfth of each class and grade every month of the crop year, which would be logistically impossible.

Right now the system works because the board sells everything, and knows what numbers to put into the formula. If it’s only selling dribs and drabs of different grades at different times through the year, the process becomes arbitrary.

And what if it doesn’t get much grain into the pool, which you can bet it wouldn’t in a rising market? Where does the money come from to distribute a fair price to that 3 CW grower, even if it could be calculated? Certainly not from a government guarantee, which would be unfair to other companies.

Even if the pool could be actuarially sound, it would need a large number of growers to commit in advance (subject to legal action) to ensure that deliveries didn’t dry up in a rising market.

There’s not much evidence that they would. Perhaps the largest corporate failure in Canadian history was the Prairie Pools’ voluntary wheat-marketing agency in 1929. And last winter, the Manitoba Canola Growers Association floated the idea of a voluntary canola pool (again, which might actually work) and received little support. In fact, it received considerable abuse, notably from some of the same critics who are now dumping on the wheat board for lack of gumption or imagination in offering a voluntary wheat pool."See More
12 hours ago · LikeUnlike.Frank Oslo So what do people do who don't want to pool? What if they just want to take a price from their neighbor?
11 hours ago · LikeUnlike.Mary Choma Occupy The Parliament Buildings http://www.facebook.com/pages/Occupy-The-Parliament-Buildings/136293443145026
11 hours ago · LikeUnlike.Grant Williamson Please read carefully on why pooling is not averaging. An average is very simple. A pool is complex with more variables to ensure everyone gets a fair price and it takes into account the grade/quality of your grain when doing so.

You can ...do that already. If you want to sell directly to your neighbour you can. If you want to sell grain outside of Canada - exporting your grain - you can do it through the Producer Direct Sales Program.See More
11 hours ago · LikeUnlike.Frank Oslo Grant, I must admit that it took me a little bit to examine your example which proves to me that the pool is averaging. Not only with time but with quality as well. I will agree to disagree you can call it pooling, I will call it averaging because no matter how complex the formula is, the net result is the same.
11 hours ago · LikeUnlike.Frank Oslo I am glad that the CWB is working well for you and you are happy with the way it works for you. What about the people who are unhappy? What are their options if they don't like the way the CWB handles their grains? How does one sell to his neighbor? Can he just get a cheque from them?
11 hours ago · LikeUnlike.Grant Williamson Yes, if you want to sell to your neighbour you can just get a cheque from them in return for your grain. If you want to export grain the Producer Direct Sales Program gives farmers a way to sell outside the board.
10 hours ago · LikeUnlike.Frank Oslo Grant can you see my post about agreeing to disagree?
10 hours ago · LikeUnlike.Mylo Ross Grant, if the CWB is as you say why are so many farmers opposed to it?
7 hours ago · LikeUnlike.Grant Williamson The majority of farmers are not opposed to the CWB. They elect a board of directors, who are also farmers, and these elections have consistently elected 80% of farmers in favour of the single-desk CWB. The plebiscite the CWB conducted this summer by mail in ballot had 62% of farmers in favour of keeping the single-desk.
27 minutes ago · LikeUnlike.Mylo Ross Looking at some history in 2007 the CWB had a vote for barley and there was a majority support to remove it from the CWB however the CWB fought against removing barley. I know your argument wll be the question was too difficult but these farmers run some multi million dollar businesses so i don't think they are that slow. Don't you think that looking back that may have really stoked the fire against the CWB by not taking action based on a vote who's result was obviously clear?

I'm asking this because it is so obvious how driven and upset a huge number of farmers are. They are told today they need a vote, but when it happened in 2007, actions were not carried thru either. Out here in the east our farmers don't have the same issue as they can deal with whoever they want. Given the era of our society, and just the very essence that a farmer is a strong independent business person, the strong support of the conservative government in the west, the very concept of collective bargaining would cause much distaste and you would have to assume things would change.

So there is a history of deceit it would seem and strong independent farmers and a majority government of today that had promised removal of the single desk for many years already. I have nothing to do with agriculture except eating of course, but i am thinking you would have to be pretty naive to not think change was going to happen. History is a harsh teacher and master, or at least it should be.

[wd9]

Statement from the NFU:

ý"Harper is showing his colours and Canadians have taken note," said the NFU President. The Canadian Wheat Board file serves as a warning to all of us of how little regard Harper has for the checks and balances that exist in a constitutional democracy to prevent governments from abusing power. Today it is the Canadian Wheat Board that they destroy. What will be next? And how soon?"

"We stand at the brink of losing a properly functioning democratic government with the Harper government in power with its ideologically driven agenda and mean spirited approach to governance," closed Boehm. The concept of public trust and public interest is lost on the Harper Government.

[TOM4CWB]

These people live in a total world of make believe:

Get this:

" unlucky ones with a couple of showers at harvest and you pulled off a crop of 3 CW. However, the wheat board finds a market for a couple of cargoes in October and takes it all off your hands, selling it to a customer for $200 per tonne."

...'and takes it all off your hands'... so what thse sellers have one super-bee of wheat... beat the CWB queue... and all their commercial grain growing neighbours... who often must wait till July/Aug of the following summer to deliver... while new crop grain is waiting for the CWB's contracted grain to disappear....

Truly it is great to see the CWB 'single desk' 'Steamroller' put out to the old machine parts row in the back 40 where it belongs.