Consrvatives pre-occupied with Quebec over W. CAN

[wd9]

Mustardman, CRS met with Transport Canada back in May. Marketing choice for those who want it has been in Conservative policy long before that and as you know the lobbying has been ongoing for at least 20 years. This isn't new. Completely ridiculous statement.

[northfarmer]

i support the moves made by harper to build his support base in que....the most important thing right now is to ensure we have a conservative majority govt as the outcome of the next federal election....on the ctv news last night, even with the anchorwoman stating the obvious position of rescinding our official position on imlementing the kyoto protocol(these guys/women love the liberals)....poll results show a starting improvement in the level of trust of canadians given to Harper since being elected...up somehting like 15% at 35%, with Dion the closest at 20%.....that tells a lot of what Canadians think and not what the media portrays....

FOB farm....we often sell non board crops, oats, peas and canola on these terms as many of our end users and customers like the predictability and reliability of this form of transport........

as for reform of transportation i do not buy into the argument that having the CWB lobbying for us does us any good, seems the mining and other industrial customers for rail service here in the west have a lot less trouble dealing with rail transport issues... but I guess they operate in a more commercially tranparent environment without a quazi governmental organization adding a leel of inefficiency to the system.....

even things like the freight cap serve to create an inefficent means of ensuring that adequate captial investments are made for maintanance and upgrades.......it takes five CN crew shifts to bring the trains to our terminals from the last of the high grade rail to the mines, only 100 miles as the crow flies from the concrete, all at a top speed of 10 miles an hour.....does this make any sense?

I would rather pay higher frieght rates for more predicable movement and would likely wash out int he end as we would pay less demurrage at the coast which would refelct in less actual basis to ship grain to port...IMHO

[mustardman]

WD9
Sure the conservatives have had a policy for years of "choice" .

Just as the railroads have had a policy of "no choice" for decades.

No joint running rights, no improvement of service, no penalties applied to railcompanies only to shippers.

Every commision group that has looked at rail problems has gotten nowhere.

Transport Canada has been controlled very succesfully for the last 100 years by the railroads.

This gov't like the previous ones will fail in attempting to change the sacred cow.

Why Do You think its off the radar ?
Phone your local M.P see what he says?

[wd9]

I know, it is about the railroads and the power they can exert. It isn't however about the CWB. The CWB is however repsonsible for the drought in 2002.

[mustardman]

Wd9

"Completely ridiculous statement"

[parsley]

agstar77, what consultations, decisions,etc. about the status-quo railroads have benefitted the farmer?

The farmer?

We can chose to name-call and balk and fight over your focused continuation of what has failed farmers, which is the absolute status quo.

Do you really make money on the system you've got, or are you making money on the fight itself?

Grace Skogstad writes about: The Dynamics of Institutional Resilience and Transformation, and she says:


==The Wheat Board is a large institution, with sales in the amount of $6 billion, selling Canadian grain in over 70 countries, and eminently equipped with the financial and expert resources to defend itself. Like other well established institutions, over its lifetime the Wheat Board has also generated a coalition of active supporters with a vested interest in the institution's continuation.===


Keep the system intact, you maintain, agstar77. Fight change every inch of the way, is what you do. So farmers can finance experts fighting in public?

Skogstad says:
======
The institution persists because it is supported by social actors who benefit from its rules and outcomes and who are sufficiently powerful to promote its continuation (Mahoney 2000: 521). Beneficiaries are not necessarily those who had power prior to the institution's creation; they may well have been subordinate to an alternative group at the institution's genesis. However, they subsequently become empowered by its rules and outcomes and support its continuation and even expansion.======

aka:
political appointments, bureaucrats, civil servants,professionals,advisors.


She ends with her high-falutin' message which essentially says, I want my blankey:

Even when contextual changes undermine the institution's ideational foundations or impede its capacity to deliver optimal outcomes, social actors risk aversion may still leave them loathe to abandon a familiar institution.

Here blankey. Where is it?


Parsley

[Burbert]

parsley, What the heck is wrong with having a blankey? Look South see what our US friends farm with there, HUGE subsidies and an open market, maybe you should move in that direction, rather than suggesting that we throw caution to the wind and trash our existing system. Maybe the yank farmers are Commies in hiding, sucking up government cash, when prices are low.

[parsley]

Somehow Burbert, the visual of you sucking on the dirty end-wad of your CWB blankey,and smelly, interspersed with loud bawling, because you're scared to be alone,provides Agri-villers with a vivid snapshot of what farming in the Designated Area is all about.

Parsley

[wd9]

Musty, which one?

[winwin]

FOB farm works for me.TRansfers all the freight risk to the buyer.They can fight with those uncertainties.Plan,organise and arrange logistics.My price is guaranteed.I don't give buyers an'act of God clause'

The thing about wheat is that all that command and control incompetence comes out of "THE POOL"In other words we-not the cwb fascists-are still paying when theres aproblem.

And theres always aproblem.17 ships backed up in the bay.Your expense.Strikes.Your expense.Old grain sitting in bins,no quotas.Your cost.As long as NOONE really OWNS the grain there will be problems and waste.Ask any communist like me.Or simply check any Indian reserve.

ITs not complicated:WITHOUT OWNERSHIP THERE CAN BE NO STEWARDSHIP.

[parsley]

Exactly, winwin. I'm pleased to recognize thew importance of risk-shifting.

Command and control incompetence is often HIDDEN in THE POOL.

Parsley

[winwin]

Isn't it more moral to share,parsley?If misery is agood thing then we should strive to have more waste and incompetence in order to have more of it to share.By the the way ,i'm gone for a week .So I won't be able to battle you radicals or even my weak kneed Menshevik allies.