Federal Government Introduces Legislation

[Ron]

Parsley, you can bypass the CWB with a token payment. Thats a "get out of jail free" card to me.

SCREW THE CWB

[Ron]

Just thought of a scam?
If I grow less than 120 tonnes/year then I cant vote. Then should the CWB apply to me? If I get a permit book for each of my 4 kids, partnership with my wife, hmmm. I think I can wiggle at least a dozen books at 119 tonnes each. Plus my 3 non farming landlords. 15 permit books that dont count would be 1785 tonnes/year?

SCREW THE CWB any way I can

[parsley]

"get out of jail free" card means very different things to you and I.


The Wheat Board negatively applies to you because it's most important function is the licensing, not the marketing function.

You/farmers/Ritz want to tinker with marketing rules.

"We need one Director over 6 feet tall,"
"Gotta have one woman".

A fourteen month discussion on how many acres to vote...100?

A seven month discussion on which crop to vote.."gotta have wheat",

"nope gotta have barley,"

"nope gotta have both within 4 years,"

crap, crap, crap.

We need to fOCUS on LICENSING


Once we have a blanket license, none of the above matters. The CWB can spend years planning and commissioning and debating the makeup of the Wheat Boarers.

Farmers can bypass them with license in hand, not pay for their stupid nonsense, their stupid lonterm planning that has seen wheat and barley deciamted under their watch.

Keep your eye on the ball. The issue is not about tinkering with the makeup of the Directors. It is about bypassing the CWB altogether.

It is about Licensing.

Parsley

[parsley]

Question:

Maggie, the corporate head lawyer for Axiom Big Toes, is a major shareholder in a farming corporation called LanticOcean, along with her mother, Ma Perkins, and her father and her sister and her brother, her uncle and her cousins, all lawyers by the dozens, but they never see Maggie alone on the farm.

They farm 167 sections of land.

Does Maggie and her lawyer shareholders get a CWB vote? LanticOcean grows the requirements set out.


btw, Lots of pattern baldness in the family, but no pattern stupid.

Parsley

[wilagro]

Any farmer with a Permit Book should be eligible to vote for a CWB director.

What is so terrible about that?

That is the way it USED ro be and should still be even under the semi-divine guidance of Ritz.

[parsley]

Maggie her uncle and her cousins, all lawyers by the dozens, are shareholders and have permit books


In your world, should they have a vote?

[wilagro]

"This legislation will ensure voters in CWB director elections are genuine farmers who have produced at least 120 tonnes of grain in either of the two crop years preceding the election. The Government of Canada intends to have these eligibility requirements in place for the director elections in the fall of 2008."

I'm going to get a rubber stamp made which will say "GENUINE FARMER" and use it on all of my correspondence.

I would dearly love to tell Mr. Ritz what he can do with his "genuine farmer" baloney.

If they are going to restrict voter eligibility why not raise the bar and say that nobody can vote unless they are a card carrying member of the CONservative Party of Canada AND actually grow at least 12000 tonnes of wheat in any given year. That way the RIGHT kind of director would be assured.

[parsley]

What is a genuine farmer?

1. A cow-calf operation who currently grows forage?

2. A Hutterite colony with each member of the colony a permit book holder/

3. A vegetable producer in Nanavut?

4. A member of the Forty-six First Nations Farming Co-op with each a permit book holder/

5. Wives of farmers?

6.Four brother partnership...do wives get a vote?

How do YOU determine who is eligible?

Or do only Wilagro rules apply?

Or only Ritz rules apply?

AND WHO THE HELL IS GOING TO PAY FOR THE DEYERMINATION AND the stupid wrangling?


That's my point.

Parsley

[parsley]

QUOTE

The Leader-Post
Mia Rabson

Legislation would put restrictions on voters' list

OTTAWA -- Small-time grain farmers from Canada's Prairies will be cut off from voting in elections for the Canadian Wheat Board under new legislation introduced Tuesday by Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz.

Bill C-57 will restrict the voters' list for the 10 elected members of the board of directors to "actual producers who produced at least 120 tonnes of grain in either of the two previous completed crop years."

Currently there is no production requirement and Ritz said in a statement the changes will ensure only active farmers get a vote, not those who have retired, rented out their land or only grow small amounts of grain as a hobby.

"You earn the right to call yourself a farmer by growing crops, not by filing paperwork," Ritz said in a news release.

Larry Hill, chairman of the Canadian Wheat Board, said he isn't sure yet how the change will affect the voters' list.

One hundred and twenty tonnes is not a huge amount of grain, Hill said, but he added that Tuesday was the first he'd heard of the change and the board hasn't had time yet to look at the idea.

The board meets for a regular meeting starting Wednesday and will discuss it then, said Hill.

"We will respond to the minister with what we think," said Hill.

Liberal agriculture critic Wayne Easter said he wonders why Ritz is introducing this bill now when his other wheat board amendments to open up barley marketing have not even been brought to the House for debate yet.

"I am suspicious of it," said Easter. "I think there is more to this than meets the eye."

Easter said he agrees that only farmers who actually produce grain and deliver it to the wheat board should be allowed to vote.

But he said this government has a poor record in democracy when it comes to the wheat board plebiscite held in 2007.

"I think we have every right to be suspicious now," said Easter.

NDP Wheat Board critic Pat Martin said if this is just about ensuring only actual producers get to vote the production requirement should be much lower.

He said he plans to amend it at committee to be 10 tonnes, not 120 tonnes.

Manitoba farmer Butch Harder, a spokesman for Friends of the Canadian Wheat Board, said this is a "draconian" measure that is intended to rig the next elections so the government can put more anti-CWB monopoly directors on the board.

"This restricts the right of the smaller producer to have a vote," he said.

"It says if you're a big producer you have power and if you're small you have none. Are they next going to say people with low incomes shouldn't get to vote in the next federal election?"

Jeff Nielsen, president of the Western Barley Growers Association, which supports the government's bid to end the CWB monopoly, said this measure is welcome.

"This isn't ganging up on the wheat board, this is strengthening it," he said.

But Stewart Wells, president of the National Farmers Union, blasted the amendments to the CWB Act as just another attempt by the federal Conservatives to undermine the single-desk system of marketing of wheat and barley.

"I don't believe it's reasonable at all,'' Wells said of restricting voting in CWB elections to farmers producing a minimum of 120 tonnes over two years.

"The people that are called producers, most of them are legitimate farmers or farmers who have rented out their land ... and are still relying on the income from that land. They have a legitimate financial interest in how that grain is marketed.''
UNQUOTE

[wilagro]

Good posting parsley...that spells it out quite well and gives some excellent viewpoints, pro and con.

[parsley]

You obvioulsy approve of arguing over tonnage amounts as opposed to marketing choice.

Process as opoposed to wealth creation.


Give your head a shake.

The goal should never be about switching the focus to proocess.


Parsley

[wilagro]

parsley: No, I oppose Mr. Ritz changing or making new rules as he goes along in order to please CERTAIN groups of farmers.

He is obviously listening to and heeding certain producer groups but certainly not all.

I'm pretty sure that Ritz went into this job with preconceived ideas as to what was needed and no one can tell me otherwise. Over the years I have read many spoutings of his.