Alberta tarsands

[chuckChuck]

SilverBack. Obviously a majority can and does impose on the minority when it comes to economic issues. Economic rights are not protected by the Charter, basic human rights are. Even Harper and Strahl support the supply management monopoly boards for dairy and poultry. Why the special treatment from Strahl and Harper for these Boards and not the Wheat Board? Either they support marketing boards or they don't. Which is it?

[lesm]

chuck chuck. i don't ever recall hearing minister strahl saying that he won't allow you to operate your own marketing board.in fact ,I believe he said he would help you set up a better board for those who wanted it. for the life of me, i can't figure out why you pro board people are so adament about forcing your ideologies upon me.is it the fear that i may make more money than you? or what? please explain so as i could sleep better at nites.

[chuckChuck]

lesm. A wheat board without a monopoly is useless. No elevators and no terminals and having to rely on competitors in an open market to handle the grain with no guaranteed supply?? Please explain how this might work because even the Strahl friendly Task Force put the idea of a dual market to rest. It is either an open market or the CWB monopoly. Choose one but not both. Trying to pretend that anything close to what the CWB offers now will be available under an open market scenario is unrealistic. As far as imposing an ideology, that is exactly what Chuck Strahl is doing against the choice of the majority. If you hadn't noticed, 60% of farmers voted in favour of single desk Wheat Board directors. 8 out of 10 elected directors currently support the single desk. You either believe in democracy or you don't.

[silverback]

How do the grain brokers, who have no elevators, railroads, or guaranteed supply, survive to feed their children Chuck?

They provide a service of marketing - for a fee. Mine charges $.05. Sometimes they have a good price, sometimes they don't. I get to choose if they sell it for me. Pretty hard to figure out. What do you think the board has been doing for seventy years? They had that long to come up with a better way to do things other than forced pooling and they didn't.

Does the Ontario Wheat Board operate their own elevator system? Their own milling system? Their own railway? What about Australia? They ran a real clean ship hey?

Don't tell me that it is ok to stomp my "economic" freedom into the ground just so your communist ideology can survive. What I grow on my land is just that - mine, and I should never be forced to mix it with yours or anyone else's unless I choose to do that. If the product you produce is not good enough without needing help from your neighbors then I am really sorry.

If the CWB cannot cope with allowing producers to use their brokering service , or not, then I am sure someone else will step up and do it for them. Let's open the books and find out how good they are doing.

[AdamSmith]

Actually chuck, 30% voted in favour of the single desk candidates for director, 20% voted for other candidates for director, and 50% shrugged their shoulders and said "whatever".
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The following are some great Thomas Jefferson Quotes,

They all aptly apply to the CWB, and the debate surrounding it.

Read and enjoy


A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine.

Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add 'within the limits of the law,' because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual.

It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself.

An honest man can feel no pleasure in the exercise of power over his fellow citizens.

Were we directed from Washington when to sow and when to reap, we should soon want bread.

Agriculture, manufacturers, commerce, and navigation, the four pillars of our prosperity, are then most thriving when left most free to individual enterprise.

I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.

To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.

[Lifer]

I am a bit more confused. If a wheat board without a monopoly is useless why all the arguments for the wheat board.

The Canadian Wheat Board has no monopoly over world wheat trade. Therefore is it not useless as far as the power arguments go.

[lesm]

Chuck Chuck, I agree with silverback's view of how the dual marketing system could work. Do you believe everything Adrian Measner tells you?? After all, he short changed all of us on our final wheat board payments for the most of seven years.

[GrainVac]

Chuchchuck, you can't compare the CWB to supply-management. Where does the CWB say grow only X amount of wheat because that is the amount we can extract maximum value for? The 80% acceptance does not accomplish the same thing. Nevermind the fact that supply-management manages the domestic needs only and is built upon the idea that we don't/won't compete in the export market and is there only to support the local producer. Last time I checked, wheat production would have to get scaled back more than 10-fold to fit the poultry and dairy supply-management models...no exports and over-charge Canadian consumers for the amount Canadians want/need....guys like you sure spout a lot of trash talk when this stuff is simple economics 101. Should I tell you about how much capital you'd have to invest to participate in a real monopoly like the poultry and dairy quota system? And guess what, they are even more at "mercy" of big multinationals than grain producers because they are completely integrated. (Maple-leaf,Saputo,etc...)

[jensend]

reading on this morning's syngenta(?) morning report that the aussie and cdn wheatboards handle 1/3 of global wheat trade. if they're both on the way out i think it will just be handing more control over to adm, cargill, etc. since they are already big in both marketing of grain and merchandising inputs they will just be strengthened by the demise of the boards. reduced competition in the marketplace hasn't worked well so far has it? if the wheat board hasn't been doing a good job i think anything extra to be gotten out of the market will just go to the big players, not the producers.

[chuckChuck]

Grainvac. I well understand the differences of how supply management works versus the CWB. What I question is how can the Conservatives be ideologicaly against the CWB on basis of freedom and choice but support marketing boards such as supply management for dairy and poultry that have even stricter restrictions on individual economic freedoms. If they believe in everyone for themselves in an open market then they shouldn't support any marketing boards. Thanks for pointing out that multinational processors dominate the market. That is exactly what has happened to the rest of agriculture. Even the Western Canadian Wheat Growers oppose the merger of Agricore with Sask Wheat Pool. Apparently they don't think there will be enough competition! Shocking! The Western Canadian Wheat Growers opposed to a 'freemarket' merger????! I thought the 'market' knows best?

[blackjack]

...is this going to be a repeat of the hog industry...as soon as the marketing board for pigs was gone...the smaller farms died like flies...the big boys in the industry grew out of what they call the days of hell...now with the increase in grain prices or an american tariff on trade ...i hear the same cries...i do hope these fuel substitutes come through for you guys...but what you receive at the farm gate in real dollars will be interesting to watch...

[rainman]

chuckChuck, were you one of the guys at the meeting this morning holding up a CWB sign that said "our board, our choice"? I was at the meeting this morning and I thought that the pro CWB people were pathetic! This was not a CWB briefing it was for the most part to announce that their will be 300 and some odd million for farmers/cooperatives,etc to access. So whem Nettie Wiebe and her CWB followers piped up about the firing of Measoner, it was not called for! I don't even classify this money as a subsidy as they made no reference to any tax breaks or direct money for bio fuel production. Minister Ambrose and Minister Strahl were there too announce federal funding for farmer owned facilities. So chuchChuck, I find your comments very narrow minded and maybe you should look at the future which WILL include bio fuels. I am not saying that minister Strahl is great, but at least they are trying unlike our previous Feds.