CWB hosting meetings to gain Input.

[wbrower]

Today I recieved a response from Shirley McClellan, to a letter I had written to The Premier of Alberta concerning the Canadian Wheat Board monopoly. In this letter she says "Our analysis has shown that US farmers often do receive better prices on the spot market than western Canadian farmers are able to get through the CWB. The Alberta Grain Commission(AGC) is doing an assessment and analysis of prices in Montana and plans to publish Montana prices on their website....(www.agric.gov.ab.ca/agc)... She goes on to to suggest "With the change in the federal cabinet, we have an opportunity to raise the profile of this issue and achieve the results we need."

Maybe Mr Speller or Mr. Alcock can explain just why it is that their Canadian Wheat Board monopoly returns about one Canadian dollar less to western Canadian farmers than Grain companies pay farmers in Montana.

[charliep]

Just as a note on the buy back, anyone who exported wheat directly in the fall of 2002 paid an extremely high price for wheat through the buy back process and like everyone recieved no final payment. A lot of pain. With the exception of people who were lucky enough to book basis and convert to a fixed price contract in the fall of 2002, most people have been at the bleeding edge of change using the producer pricing options.

I am supportive of change in CWB producer pricing options. The question is how far this change goes to reflecting markets versus a full advance on pooled price or a change to the point where there is a full market price signal outside the CWB/pooling.

[parsley]

charliep,

You seem to think doing the buyback is exporting directly. It isn't.

Doing a buyback means selling my grain to the CWB. This means a legal change of ownership of my grain to the CWB. Exporting it means I must first become a grain buyer. I must legally purchase Wheat Board grain if I want to sell anything at all. Not for me.

In the 26 August/99 Western Producer article, now-CWB Director Rod Flaman brought this very issue to court and his statement of claim stated, "It would appear that the license application is arbitrarily denied unless the applicant is willing to first sell to the CWB Corporation that very grain which he wishes to export"

I don't want to twiddle and tinker with daily prices, or designing new pricing options or streamlining the buyback procedure. They simply result in more staff. I don't want to buy Wheat Board grain, charliep. I want to market my grain. I

With a simple export license, and a marketing course from all the bull-marketers in Western Canada, I can peddle, (as boone says), my grain. And folks like wbrower won't have to ask the Alcock's of the world where his $$$ went anymore.

Parsley

[TOM4CWB]

CHarlie;

Since the last PPO numbers showed the CWB extracted over $.70/bu on the basis... this is a very small concession...

Crusher;

Art Macklin, Butch Harder, Ian McCreary, and Bill Nicholson are just a few of the elected Directors who voted to stop CWB Director's from using PPO's in marketing their CWB grain... along with many of the appointed Directors.

This was pure self interest on the part of these CWB Directors in preventing cash pricing options (that work reasonably well)... for if these same folks were required to ONLY use Fixed Price and Basis contracts... we would have had many of these PPO problems resolved years ago...

These CWB Directors have a vested interest in stopping transparent prices from being offered to farmers. THey themselves do not believe there would be a CWB to provide a pay check... if daily direct transparent pricing were avaliable to "designated area" farmers who market through the CWB.

[boone]

parsley etal I'm not here to denigrate anyone but you know it get's a little tiring when I see players who only see how the market seems to short them. Last year Tom4 and more spoke about how Ontario get's special treatment that was true but measure the tonnage and you realize the insignificance of setting policy based on a miniscule market. You know many years ago I asked a lady that had been smuggled out of mainland China, to Hong Kong (1957) who was very free market oriented (no pun) why Tinamen square happened and she said in a very pragmatic way. At some point the government is responsible to the majority regardless of how unpalatable it is. And this comes back to me when I see some of the responses on this string. We'll get there, (like China) but don't be led, lead. I see brokers with a lot of self interest championing the cause of change. They are under some dillusion that they will have one of the BIG mansions in Winnipeg like pre CWB days. Ain't going to happen.

[parsley]

boone.

No wonder you have a tired mind when Tom4CWB tells you that the CWB extracted over $.70/bu on the basis. $.70/bu!!! No transparency. No item on the audited sheet. Just virtual extraction. And you are grinning-satisfied.

boone, the government IS, as you quote, responsible to the majority regardless of how unpalatable it is.... and that includes following the law. The CWB do NOT follow the CWB Act, but I'm sure you'll turn your blind-single-desk-eye when your argument doesn't suit your cause.

Never mind that the CWB are taking money out of the pooling accounts to pay for the exporting-licensing costs of: corporations, feed mills, Ontarians, Quebecors, seedgrowers, etc.(How much will we eventually find comes out of our poooling accounts/bus. for this tom4CWB?).

Never mind that the CWB refuses to give a Western farmer an export license unless he sells his grain to the Board. (Maybe the Directors should make a policy to issue an individual license ONLY if the Western farmer annually submits a C$500.00 Liberal donation. Maybe then you'd wake up and squawk).

As for leading or being led....The CWB leads all of us with the threat of jail. Some business partner. Certainly the Act requires farmers to sport a license at the borders, but the Act doesn't require us to hand over money to get the license, nor to give the Board a bag of diamonds to get a license. They are right out of Parliament's line, and you want to tinker with the small stuff.

boone, dealing with the big corps requires you to be at your best, but if they are less than legal, you have the option of 1. court or 2. taking your business elsewhere. Not so with the Board. They are the only game in town because they will not issue me a license.

Mansions? You'll be relieved they've all moved out of the West or out of the country and into Ontario/or USA. All those flour mills thriving throughout the West WAS an irritation for so many. Now we can point and say, "Those bas.......don't have more than I do" Equality for the masses, right?

We replaced everything with one big single desk. Good thing we got rid of the employment in each community, and the value-adding, too. Is there anything worse than decadent richness in our communities? We taught those big corporations a lesson. We chased them all out, unhinged nearly every corporate headquarters we could attack, from huge mills in the bread-basket of Western Canada, driving them out straight to the East or into the USA, and boy did we teach them a lesson. Who's left that we can drive a stake into their greedy corporate heart? We certainly are left with ourexpert-marketing CWB employees.

Tell me who gets the best deal boone. The CWB employees or you? They WORK FOR YOU, in theory, but who makes the most money, who has the best benefit plan and who has the best pension?

I know, I know, boone. I concede. You've got your final payment.

Parsley

[TOM4CWB]

Boone;

The Cargill/Conagra/ADM's of this world Absolutely LOVE the CWB... and make massive amounts of money that flows directly out of Canada...

So Mansions made from milling/processing wheat trading are instead taken from the basis the CWB gives to these people... a steady flow out of this country...

One Big reason Volumes of milling/processing wheat consumption have increased so much in Canada (35%) VS the US (15%(the CWB's #'s)) in the past 10 years...

Is BECAUSE of the CWB;

The CWB is providing a CHEAPER more secure supply of milling/processing wheat to these processors... than can be accessed south of the 49th.

AND when we look at the buy-up of our wheat milling/processing industry... the numbers are staggering... how well the likes of ADM/Conagra have done by the CWB.

Playing the CWB's game is obviously more profitable than we can imagine for these folks...

They have worked very hard... and deserve to have become rich by adapting to our CWB's game... I do not take this wealth creation right/ability away from them at all. We have ALLOWED this to happen... they have simply followed our game plan... and turned it to their own advantage.

But don't tell me that the CWB is going to save either our souls or our farms...

Individual responsibility and accountability are the keys...

Which is WHY the CWB as it is today will FAIL... the CWB structured as it is... cannot provide the results you are asking the CWB to provide.

[Incognito]

Mansions....u left wing whackos crack me up.

Minneapolis gained and Winnipeg lost...if you can read more than the diatribe that flows from www.nfu.com, check to see how Minneapolis flourished and Winnipeg floundered sinced the inception of the CWB.

Brokers and Mansions...you maybe should have checked where Esmund Jarvis lived in Winnipeg with local golf course membership (St.Charles) $13,000 per year; Manitoba Club membership - $1000.00 per year - $300.00 per month min. tab; Winter Club membership $1800.00 per year and the BEST restaurant in Winnipeg (Dubrovnik's) new him by first name.

I've just totalled $20,000 in expenses that would feed 3 farm families. Oh ya, divided by 12,000,000 tonnes and that only equates to .0016 cents per tonne. Isn't pooling marvelous!

[boone]

Parsley: "Thou doth protest too much"! I think you better go back and read my post, I have no trouble with mansions, I hope to have a light bulb to burn some day and running water. I was describing the human reaction that got us to where we are, no more no less. But your welcome, for me scratching your splean till the pressure was off. I will share this observation once again. I believe elevators (line companies, farmer terminals, producer loading etc. should all share in the opportunity to move the grain that the board tracks the price of. All I want from the CWB in these transactions is absolute flow through. Minn Kan- frt- dollar time risk of delivery-handle= spot price. Then have each handler bid their street to me. Kapiche? But if you want to get into it, when feed grain several years back was flowing out of Alberta with the farmers own company and finding it's way into U.S. millers plants. Lowering prices for mill wheat here,and lowering delivery and price there, and pissing off U.S. farmers, or moving east and being skimmed by a U.S. multi and yes building mansions in far away places and was denied by all players (so) the lack of coordination is what I'm worried about Canadian open marketers are dysfunctional. Market rises (seal the bins) price drops load the truck, you know the drill. Now you want me to be in a free and open market with a bunch of market no-minds with my wheat. They don't even listen to the gurus that do watch it.(canola) You can't legislate intelligence. So you keep the majority safe from the erratic and disturbed by placing them in a jacket. But enough about farmers for justice. And for the record it is upsetting to have farmers not treated fair and tom4 is right to be upset. What I'm suggesting here is you have yet to show an improvement that all can work with and I sit here ever patient your humble whipping boy.

[Incognito]

QUOTE

Market rises (seal the bins) price drops load the truck, you know the drill. Now you want me to be in a free and open market with a bunch of market no-minds with my wheat.

UNQUOTE

Thats exactly what you did last year.

Near record high Minneapolis wheat price - CWB pulls out of the market (seal the bin) Price drops - currency rises - enter back into the market (load the truck)

[TOM4CWB]

Boone;

My problem with the "left wing"... is that they feel everyone owes them a good chunk of their living... to the extent that those who get out and work hard to market... and create wealth... must fill the pocket of the left winger in the process.

Why exactly do I owe every other grain farmer a chunk of my farm? DO they or the CWB pay any of my loan payments or expences?

COme and ask me personally, and I will help anyone who asks nicely... and give them a hand.

This personal generousity was the spirit that built western Canada... not the CWB "social gospel".

For anything built by human thoughts, for the purpose of "getting richer" by taking from someone else... (pooling) will never resolve any of our financial problems... this scheme will only drive us all into further poverty.

Alberta VS Sask. Economies are a practical example...

Alberta being blessed, while Sask is cursed... both provinces are very rich in natural resourses... yet one prospers while the other flounders.

The Fear of God is the beginning of all wisdom... Proverbs is full of many practical examples why solutions like the CWB can never solve our social/financial problems.

In 1943 the CWB was created to extract the bounty out of Western Canadian farmers... these roots have not been cut off or seperated from the CWB...

This is why the Feds would jail farmers who Commissioner Hehn admitted in 1993 were not breaking any law.

By the way Boone... The Farmers for Justice group were most offended by the huge profits the ...CWB... stole and gave to Multi-National grain merchants (stealing it from average farmers) in 1993-94.

Check the history books and the Court Documents Court cases like MJ Farms...

Sadly, you missed the whole point of the political demonstration Farmers for Justice stood for. The exact opposite of what you wrote above.

[boone]

incognito: It is nice of you to display my ability to control CWB I hadn't realized. But further to this I had observed in Oct. 2002 by statements made by cwb that they were out of the market and proud as punch, I indicated to people that mattered as much and we took some remedial action, however; my support for orderly distribution of grain to customers is what you should focus on here. You don't realize but you come accross as silly as the nfu with your diatribe, and believe me I've have studied most all of them. Now tom4cwb I know your heart is in the right place but if you and eatmore want to do a deal, fine I say get at it, but don't bemoan when someone else bids you to a drop dead standstill, and you make more on your straw biz. I don't take ownership for either side as you would each like to. Farmers for justice would have done better to look at who was using them for their own deeds and I mean take a hard look. I used to watch the radical left get a few farmers wild eyed and pumped up, under FFJ it was the right wing. Good entertainment (maybe) progressive? I don't think so. They were respected for their views, but not their behaviour. Anyway over to you. sorry charliep for taking up screen with this nonsense.

[parsley]

Anybody who wants to scratch somebody else's body parts can hardly describe themselves as humble, boone. Maybe you should read a bit of Freud.

The lack of co-ordination by the central Wheat Board planners is blatantly obvious to so many of us when we read our net statements, but you seem to crave even more more control.

You seem angry that Albertans moved grain into the US. Boy will you be ticked with Ontario for selling into the US or if Australia sells grain to the US, because they will be, as you claim, "Lowering prices for mill wheat here,and lowering delivery and price there, and pissing off U.S. farmers".

You have a problem with open markets, and obviously could only be happy with a single world wheat board, one world store and one world restaurant and one world feed mill and on and on. Unfortunately for you, you were born into a free market system, where you cannot legislate intelligence, or I'm sure you'd try. Your views are consistent with Wheat Board views that embrace jailing farmers to "keep the majority safe from the erratic". The same kind of majority-thinkers relished the head lopping during the French revolution.

You've maybe studied a lot, boone but your personal philosophy will have to address your choice........ that force is your business tool, while persuasion is mine. I don't want you as my business partner unless you really want and agree to be. Period. You don't like me, but you will force me to be your business partner, even if it means jailing me.

My remedy is simple, (granted it's repetitive), boone, and it promisesas you say, "an improvement that all can work with" because it rids you of partnering with "the erratic and disturbed".(I'm one of them, but don't tell). It's this:

Call the Board and encourage them to issue a license to the obviously demented applicants. A handful of us. No changes in legislation. No money lost. No extra bookwork because the Board already keeps lists of the erratic and the disturbed. They have to stamp denied or issued on the license anyhow! Come on, boone, be a sport. Tell them to smile and stamp, "GRANTED".

Parsley

[boone]

parsley: perhaps you have been reading to much Machiavelli. You have covinced yourself like Dubbya to the south that you have manifest destiny, and go forth and conquer for you are able to over power them. Good luck and good life.

[parsley]

Thanks for the encouragement, boone. I've just been watching an Agricultural Forum from Yorkton, Saskatchewan on CPAC where I watched CWB Director Larry Hill recant Wheat Board lying, so I guess his destiny was to eat crow.

Traditionally, the Wheat Board has maintained they cannot grant licenses to producers, but at this meeting, Larry Hill finally confessed, after being directly confronted mind you, that, "The Board of Directors has the ability to give licenses." He admitted there was no need to change the legislation either. Even swine can roll over and just be pigs at the trough.

I'm starting to feel like we're really bonding, boone.