Today's Golden Parachute goes to...

[sumdumguy]

These guys prob wont know what to do with all
that money. Now that they dont have the power
to confiscate peoples grain, they might have to
actually learn what its like to compete and
actually manage a company.

[gustgd]

What I wonder about is who owns the CWB? I
may be wrong but, it is still the Federal
govenment owning the entire lock stock and
barrel. So while it does seem like a massive
transfer from the Canadian taxpayers to the
CWB II. It is really just robbing Peter to
pay Paul.
As others have noted its important that this
come from taxpayers as it was the government
that had imposed the Monopoly on us. And we
are only 32 sleeps until market freedom,
which is the endzone.

[grassfarmer]

"Earlier this year Ritz unveiled a $25-million, five-
year program to give incentives to grain companies to
use the Port of Churchill to ship grain."

Strange no-one commented on this part. I thought it
was supposed to be all about free enterprise? I guess
subsidizing the large grain companies is considered
free enterprise? - now you are in the same boat as
the beef industry - constant pay outs to the big
packing companies. Gotta loves the illusion that is
"free enterprise".

[charliep]

Is Churchill a government policy issue or something
where there is a business case? So you believe that if
it is government policy to provide economic activity
to Churchill for strategic reasons, farmers should pick
up the tab?

[blackpowder]

Churchill was all politics. The $25 mil is a crap, cover, sniff, expense.

[jdepape]

Blackpowder: the cost of the CWB to the taxpayer
was not zero. It was, in fact, huge.

First, pool deficits. Over the years, taxpayers
have paid close to $2 Billion to cover these
mistakes. That's "Billion" - with a B.

Next, think of all the trade challenges that the
CWB supporters like to brag about how " the
CWB won every time". Yes, it cost the CWB
millions to fight these but they weren't alone; the
federal government was right there alongside
them pumping expensive taxpayer resources into
fighting every challenge. Note: the US was always
challenging the CWB, not simply Canadian
exports into the US. So don't get fooled into
thinking that it was simply ongoing exports into
the US that caused these challenges - it was
indeed the CWB itself that caused them.

Think of all the studies and Royal Commissions
paid for by the taxpayer (and there were many of
them) - all trying to figure out how to make the
grain industry work better but never, ever
contemplating what the real solution was; get rid
of the single desk.

Now think of all the lost opportunities and what
they would have meant to our economy - in terms
of GDP, taxes paid, etc. Immeasurable.

And finally, think of the lower income to farmers
and what that cost the economy.

You know what has incensed me? Talking to
farmers who say things like "I don't care if I get
less revenue through the CWB - it's more
important that we all get the same." What an
economically numbingly stupid position. And I've
heard it more than once.

Speaking as a taxpayer, don't even begin to bore
me with that old argument that the CWB never
cost me anything. It has cost us all much more
than we will ever really know.

This $349 million is welcomed in that it comes
with the knowledge that this is the last of it.

[wd9]

jdepape, its not the price of a cup of
coffee. We don't all pay the same taxes as
20% pay 80% of the taxes and most of the
people who post here are in that 20%.

[jdepape]

wd9:

cup of coffee, steak dinner...whatever.

My point is its cheap - real cheap - compared to
the alternative.

Onward and upward

[wd9]

The alternative? You mean like peas canola
oats lentils beans....

[wd9]

As in those commodities don't have a cwb
and are just fine.

What is the alternative you are referring
to?

[jdepape]

The $349 million is a cost to transition from a
single desk to no single desk. The alternative is
to not transition, i.e. keep the single desk.

The "alternative" - keeping the single desk - would
be much more expensive.

[hedgehog]

it looks like the cwb has robbed every wheat farmer in the western world by lowering the price globally by poor selling .

[grassfarmer]

Wow, hedgehog you have been drinking too much of
the anti CWB kool-aid what a ridiculous statement to
make.

[wd9]

Ah ok, thx jdepape.

[highwayman]

If you think it such a stupid statement alfalfa,
please enlighten us with your brilliant arguments
to the contrary rather than your own stupid
statements. Our family has been witness to the
losses caused by the single desk and the cost to
western canadian farmers since its inception.
Since 1908 we have had a skin in this game and
to here the likes of yourself ,as a newcomer to
Canadian agriculture, argue against the freedom
to choose is quite pathetic.