CWB rally

[craig]

I saw two reports re the CWB rally yesterday. the Regina leader post said there were hundreds of farmers from across western canada while another said the rally had kind of fell apart with only about 25 farmers there. Anyone no the truth.

[Lyndsey]

the news here in winnipeg says 300
farmers, but I'll ask my co-worker
who was there...she did say that that
they had effigies of Strahl covered in
Swastikas. That negative energy
can't be good for anybody.

[chaffmeister]

CBC National news carried the story. Fottage showed 50 people on the street in front of the CWB building as well as a semi with a banner "Friends of the CWB" (wonder who paid for that....).

Some posters and placards but no sign of effigies or swastikas.....

[liberty]

I just talked to a friend who was at the rally as a counter-demonstrator and he confirms that the rough count at the meeting hall prior to the march was roughly 300. It is possible that not all of these people made it to the CWB office though due to parking issues, time, etc.

[wd9]

Why, what is going on at the CWB? Did I miss something?

[JACKFLASH]

Looking at the footage and the pictures in the paper. It didn't seem like there were too many farmeres there.

The crowd was young, well-dressed. No farmer hats, old people, etc. I think the CWB let their employees have the afternoon off.

The CWB is good at propaganda.

[BennyHin]

I see Craig's was ready the gospel according to Morris this morning, it must be accurate.

As I understand it Morris' office is only one block away from the cwb's. I guess he ran out of fingers and toes, and couldn't count beyond 25.

(It is alleged he has more than 10 digits of each)

[BennyHin]

I was listening to a Winnipeg radio station's (CJOB 680) RSS feed on the internet where they interviewed a small hog/even smaller grain farmer from Morris Mb named Rolf Penner. I never heared of this guy before. He was terrible on the interview, couldnt answer why the pro-cwb farmers won the recent cwb elections. All he said was... and I quote, "uhm, ah, ah, hum, ah, you know, uhm, you know, uhm, well, huh, you, know, you, know, you, know, you, know, you, know, you, know, you, know, you, know, you, know, you, know. Did you know there was a character in the "sound of Music" with the name of Rolf? Sure reminds me of him.

[wd9]

Gets more air time than incognito!
He's a 'fellow' just like you and me

http://www.fcpp.org/main/index.php

http://www.fcpp.org/main/publication_detail.php?PubID=1590

http://www.24d.org/newsarticles/Penner-false-advertising.pdf

http://agvisiontv.farms.com/story.cfm?segment=555

http://prairiewrangler.blogspot.com/2006/11/friendly-challenge-to-cwb-proponents.html

In the anti-CWB camp, we have a Policy Fellow at the FCPP and Manitoba farmer Rolf Penner:

"The gold standard for studies, done 10 years ago by agricultural economists Colin Carter and Al Loyns, found no evidence of price premiums but all sorts of net costs associated with the current system. This is no surprise, since the majority of Canadian wheat goes into markets where price is more important than quality. They tallied up the hidden costs of administration, protein giveaways, extra handling charges, demurrage, delays in payment and other costs associated with the CWB system.(...)They also noted that the 1989 removal of oats from the single desk translated into higher farm gate prices relative to world markets, while at the same time marketing costs dropped by about one-third.
A George Morris Centre study in 2002 confirmed that farmers would see lower costs and higher returns in an environment of marketing choice, and went further to say that we would also see greater investment in value-added processing, with a "significant" increase in new jobs. It observed that during the 1990s such investments in the west lagged Ontario by a full two-thirds, and then noted that overall investment in the U.S. was almost double that of all of Canada.(...)


In addition, the 2004 Sparks Companies' study on barley showed that if marketing were "unimpeded," "substantial opportunities" for the barley industry in Western Canada would open up. Again, the conclusion was that the "CWB does not bring value to the barley sector, rather it exacts a significant cost in lost opportunities, high administrative costs and poor marketing results." The CWB fails to achieve prices that are even averages of the annual price ranges for feed barley and malting barley, with "average returns from feed barley sales consistently lower than the lowest recorded domestic prices in both Alberta and Manitoba, by margins of between $10 and $40 per tonne."


As with the George Morris Centre study, the Sparks one points to a substantial investment in malting facilities in the U.S. northern tier states. In recent years, they saw $400 million worth of investment in increased malting capacity, even though building in Canada would have conferred a price advantage of $35 to $40 a tonne. The reason is that in the U.S. maltsters can source directly from producers.

All this confirms spot-price comparisons that farmers do on a regular basis. Thanks to the Internet, these real-world, real-time, real-price comparisons can be done in less than five minutes. Numerous producers have also gone across the border with samples and verified these values. In every prairie province, they are finding that prices offered in the northern U.S. are better by at least $19 a tonne for spring wheat, and up to $44 a tonne (and sometimes more) for winter wheat.(...)

Supporters of the CWB monopoly insist that their model of forced collectivization trumps the principles of individual freedom and private property rights because it makes farmers more money. Yet for over 50 years, they have failed to present the evidence to back up the claim.(...) They all resound with the hollow platitude, "You just have to trust us."

There may be a place in life for faith, but this isn't it."


Don't ya love google and Ctrl V.

[wd9]

For a Bio:
http://www.fcpp.org/main/people.php?CategoryID=21