Is there a “CWB NEP” Federal Government
“National Expropriation Policy”(NEP)?
Alberta has an election in full swing, which is bringing the issues of Commodity Marketing front and center.
Both Electricity and Natural Gas deregulation is happening in Alberta.
These issues clearly bring into focus the supply demand relationships that govern how markets work.
Can we learn from these markets something about grain Marketing?
I believe we can.
In the latest P. C. Alberta Election material, Alberta explains why Natural Gas prices have risen dramatically in the last few months.
This document states, “Under the North American Free Trade Agreement, the cost of natural gas is the same at the wellhead as it is at the end of the [Alliance] pipeline [which started shipping natural gas to the USA in November 2000] with the only difference being the shipping charges….Over the past years Alberta has been unable to get full value for its gas… Now that constraints imposed by limited pipeline capacity are no longer a factor, Alberta gas can be sold at the North American price. Alberta is finally getting full value for its resources.”
I submit Supply and demand economics for feed wheat and barley are no different than for Alberta natural gas. Alberta domestic prices for natural gas have risen because we must compete against unrestricted competition from all of North American for this gas.
Just like the lack of pipeline capacity for exporting Alberta gas lowered prices, the “CWB NEP” prevents grain producers from receiving the higher North American grain prices.
Grain Farmers must now pay higher energy and gas costs. We pay fair market value for our energy, but have both our domestic and export grain expropriated from us at below fair market value.
Please show me a time in the last two years when the CWB buy-back on feed grains has not been above the Pool Return Outlook.
This is not fair.
How can natural gas producers be protected by NAFTA, but not “designated area” grain producers?
I looked through NAFTA, and grain producers have the same protection as natural gas producers. Yet the CWB keeps on intentionally distorting the market place.
How does the CWB create this illegal distortion?
The CWB NEP Buy-backs force “designated area” Grain Producers to pay, on average, $20.00 per tonne net tariff under Federal Government CWB Law, for permission to export feed wheat and barley to the North American market!
This effectively closes the valve on shipments of “designated area” grain going across the US border. The CWB now manages western Canadian feed grain stock levels by selling only what grains it feels will maintain comfortable stocks inside Canada, thereby maintaining a non-competitive “designated area” feed grain market.
What is difference between the CWB Export Monopoly expropriations, and the NEP?
These CWB policies have the economic effect of a Federal Government CWB NEP (National Expropriation Policy) for the benefit of domestic Canadian users of these Feed Wheat and Barley products, maintaining no-cost high stock levels of feed grains.
This policy has resulted in CWB NEP costs to grain producers in Western Canada of Billions of dollars over the past decades!
The Canadian Federal Government in 1993, when it tried to institute the ill fated “Continental Barley Market”, admitted that the CWB effect on barley alone was costing “designated area” grain producers “($121 million per year)” (Page 3102 of Canada Gazette Part II, Volume 127, No. 14 SOR/DOR S/93-360).
Mr. Ken Beswick, Commissioner of the CWB from Alberta, resigned because the CWB was costing, Alberta barley and grain producers, millions in 1996 alone!
Ken then promptly left Canada!
Other feed grain products produced in Western Canada must compete with over 15 million tonnes of cheap feed wheat and barley each year, further making the situation unfairly desperate for “designated area” grain producers.
The Alberta Government knows these facts, and now that all of us know this as well, will the CWB do something to end the “CWB NEP” and instead allow an open and competitive feed grain market in western Canada?
“National Expropriation Policy”(NEP)?
Alberta has an election in full swing, which is bringing the issues of Commodity Marketing front and center.
Both Electricity and Natural Gas deregulation is happening in Alberta.
These issues clearly bring into focus the supply demand relationships that govern how markets work.
Can we learn from these markets something about grain Marketing?
I believe we can.
In the latest P. C. Alberta Election material, Alberta explains why Natural Gas prices have risen dramatically in the last few months.
This document states, “Under the North American Free Trade Agreement, the cost of natural gas is the same at the wellhead as it is at the end of the [Alliance] pipeline [which started shipping natural gas to the USA in November 2000] with the only difference being the shipping charges….Over the past years Alberta has been unable to get full value for its gas… Now that constraints imposed by limited pipeline capacity are no longer a factor, Alberta gas can be sold at the North American price. Alberta is finally getting full value for its resources.”
I submit Supply and demand economics for feed wheat and barley are no different than for Alberta natural gas. Alberta domestic prices for natural gas have risen because we must compete against unrestricted competition from all of North American for this gas.
Just like the lack of pipeline capacity for exporting Alberta gas lowered prices, the “CWB NEP” prevents grain producers from receiving the higher North American grain prices.
Grain Farmers must now pay higher energy and gas costs. We pay fair market value for our energy, but have both our domestic and export grain expropriated from us at below fair market value.
Please show me a time in the last two years when the CWB buy-back on feed grains has not been above the Pool Return Outlook.
This is not fair.
How can natural gas producers be protected by NAFTA, but not “designated area” grain producers?
I looked through NAFTA, and grain producers have the same protection as natural gas producers. Yet the CWB keeps on intentionally distorting the market place.
How does the CWB create this illegal distortion?
The CWB NEP Buy-backs force “designated area” Grain Producers to pay, on average, $20.00 per tonne net tariff under Federal Government CWB Law, for permission to export feed wheat and barley to the North American market!
This effectively closes the valve on shipments of “designated area” grain going across the US border. The CWB now manages western Canadian feed grain stock levels by selling only what grains it feels will maintain comfortable stocks inside Canada, thereby maintaining a non-competitive “designated area” feed grain market.
What is difference between the CWB Export Monopoly expropriations, and the NEP?
These CWB policies have the economic effect of a Federal Government CWB NEP (National Expropriation Policy) for the benefit of domestic Canadian users of these Feed Wheat and Barley products, maintaining no-cost high stock levels of feed grains.
This policy has resulted in CWB NEP costs to grain producers in Western Canada of Billions of dollars over the past decades!
The Canadian Federal Government in 1993, when it tried to institute the ill fated “Continental Barley Market”, admitted that the CWB effect on barley alone was costing “designated area” grain producers “($121 million per year)” (Page 3102 of Canada Gazette Part II, Volume 127, No. 14 SOR/DOR S/93-360).
Mr. Ken Beswick, Commissioner of the CWB from Alberta, resigned because the CWB was costing, Alberta barley and grain producers, millions in 1996 alone!
Ken then promptly left Canada!
Other feed grain products produced in Western Canada must compete with over 15 million tonnes of cheap feed wheat and barley each year, further making the situation unfairly desperate for “designated area” grain producers.
The Alberta Government knows these facts, and now that all of us know this as well, will the CWB do something to end the “CWB NEP” and instead allow an open and competitive feed grain market in western Canada?
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