U.S. Wheat Associates

[rkaiser]

And from a realist view - Americans are not bastards. American multinational companies are something worse. All about control farmers_son. Read the book.

[kato]

I heard on the news last week that Canada provides the U.S. with 50% of it's energy.

I guess it's not appreciated eh? I bet it's not even known.

According to the Energy Information Administration, Canada and Mexico, the other pieces of the Free Trade Agreement, are a little more important than some would have us think.

"EIA forecasts that the United States will have total net oil imports (crude and products) of 12.2 million bbl/d during 2005, representing around 58 percent of total U.S. oil demand. Overall, the top suppliers of crude oil to the United States during January-August 2005 were Canada (1.6 million bbl/d), Mexico (1.6 million bbl/d), Saudi Arabia (1.5 million bbl/d), Venezuela (1.3 million bbl/d), and Nigeria (1.0 million bbl/d)."

note: bbl/d means barrels per day. That's a lot of oil.

[kato]

I didn't include the electric power, coal, or other forms of energy.

[winwin]

However,the state DOES have a place in the GRANARIES of the nation.It is there that Rosie,Agstar etc can really live out there BONDAGE fantasies.

Imagine;the chains,the whips,leather.I've seen farmers coming into courtrooms all chains top to bottom.I'll bet cotten is a DOMINATRIX like me,oral abuse and all.

Be still your heart,Vader,thinking about Andy Mcmechan going through 57 cavity searches.I know where you power types are really (coming) from.

[Willowcreek]

Thanks to USDA's lack of concern for US consumers and the safety/longterm economic vitality of the US cattle herd, Canada is riding on the shirttails of the industry the US cattleman built...

I can see why Canadians oppose M-COOL when you have to ship 85% of your export beef to the US and get the USDA label so it can be passed off as US beef in order to sell it....

If Rule 2 goes into effect, how much of Canadas export beef will have to go to the US, be relabeled with a USDA inspected stamp and passed off as US product, in order to get someone to buy it? 99.9%???????????

Sad day when Canadian cattlemen have come to the point they have to support the multinationals use of fraud and deceit to market their product- just so they can stick a few more illicit bucks in their pocket!!!!!!

[agstar77]

All the information on the Algeria file has been sent to Obermeister Strahl's office. Let's see if he can come clean and stop spouting the line of our U.S. buddies.

[agstar77]

Oh bring it on WW!!!

[FarmRanger]

When this whole controversy started, I remember reading that original article in the online version of Liberte from Algeria. The google translation of the article quoted Mr. Kacem as saying that the CWB was giving them “tens of dollars per tonne savings” from the world price.

The CWB said in it’s defense “A review of the original press article in French clearly shows that at no point does Mr. Kacem say that they enjoy "very low prices".

Quite true, Mr. Kacem wasn’t quoted as saying “they enjoy very low prices” anywhere in that article, it was “tens of dollars per tonne savings”.

Tomato, tomato

[winwin]

F.RANGER;No,tens of dollars per tonne are not" very low prices".Hell, we can cut prices WAY more than that!

Whatever our friends need by way of favor,we can do.But it is only possible with; 1. low down payment compulsory pooling to create a massive slush fund AND 2.absolutely NO public scrutiny of ANY transaction.

[farmers_son]

If there are any concerns about the USDA and the longterm vitality of the U.S. cattle herd it would have more to do with the USDA subsidizing ethanol production and the resulting increases in grain prices.

I am sure the multinationals do use fraud and deceit. Come to think of it, R-Calf does too. There is a lot of that going around.

I really do not care what arguments/lies the R-Calf people come up with. Any more R-Calf is just a bad memory. The blockade of Canadian live cattle never had anything to do with food safety. It had a bit to do with the economic vitality of the U.S cattle herd and a whole lot to do with the U.S. pressuring Canada to support some rather unfortunate U.S. foreign policies. What has changed however is the price of oil which was about $25 a barrel prior to BSE and since BSE it has risen to about $80 a barrel and today is above $60 a barrel. There is no way on gods green earth that the U.S. (which has BSE too by the way) is going to put in place any kind of trade restrictions on Alberta beef and live cattle when Alberta has the world’s largest oil reserves and our new Premier is a farmer.

Whether we are in Canada or the U.S., agriculture from here on in is going to be all about energy. The next ten years are going to be defined by energy. And we got it. No one is stopping Alberta’s cattle at the border any more.

Rule 2 is published, it is just a matter of weeks until we see those girls heading south. Willowcreek if you listen carefully on a quiet night you can hear them coming...mooo!!

[chaffmeister]

preferential prices
preferential prices
preferential prices

tens of dollars per tonne
tens of dollars per tonne
tens of dollars per tonne

Agstar - come clean on this - what do these phrases mean to you? What do they mean to a buyer?

[parsley]

Any B of D who is willing to go to such lengths as this one to disobey the Minister, is hardly capable of sending ALL the information.

Parsley

[rkaiser]

Hogwash farmers_son. The beef industry has nothing to do with the Oil industry. And Rcalf has nothing to do with the border. All multinational packer manipulation. If ABP?CCA would see this and stop poking at Rcalf and depending on the open border to save their souls, we would all be better off. Rcalf and the ABP?CCA should both be looking at trying to get beef off this conintinent rather than squabbling over something they have no control over. No fear of cool here Oldtimer. Like I said before - you take Japan we'll take the E.U. That is the only solution to the current captive North American market.

That should be God's green earth farmer_son. Sorry for being technical and I am not a religious advertiser, just simply respectful of that old fart up there.

[farmers_son]

I do agree that R-Calf has nothing to do with the border. I agree the large packers are not above manipulation to increase their profits. But I would not overlook politics as being a factor in the opening/non opening of the border to live cattle and beef. If the United States considers the border being closed to our cows and cow beef along with continued barriers to trade with UTM animals to be in their best interest then the border will remain closed. However it is my opinion that the U.S. has become acutely aware of our oil reserves since the price of crude oil has increased three fold in the last four years. I think that puts Canada in the driver’s seat. I think you will see Rule 2 proceed in a very different fashion than the last Rule and it has everything to do with energy. The politics of oil.

As long as shipments to Europe and Japan need to be processed through one of our two Canadian packers I do not see shipments to those continents helping the current captive market situation. There are markets within North American for all the beef we can produce, in fact North America is a net importer of beef. We need alternative markets for our live cattle in order to break the captive market that does exist. I do not see us shipping live cattle to either the E.U. or Japan.

MCOOL is market interference. It is there, in part, to restrict the Canadian producers access to what is a North American market for beef and live cattle. It is not a marketing problem, it is an illegal trade action against Canada.

My wife corrected me on my typo re small “g”, you are right on that one. You spelled conintinent wrong.

[DiamondSCattleCo]

"I think that puts Canada in the driver’s seat."

It should put Canada in the drivers seat, however we haven't had a hard line bargainer since Diefenbaker was in power.

When the border was still closed to UTMs, I was speaking to my MP one day and I asked him why we aren't playing more hardball with the US when it comes to NAFTA violations (wheat, softwood, beef). His response disappointed me: "The US buys alot of other products from Canada, and we have to be careful that we don't lose those sales."

I was very disappointed in his response, as I thought he had bigger cajones and more brains than that. I'm not sure where he feels that the US can get water, power and oil from as cheaply as they get it from Canada, but its obvious to me that he was considering the trade in high technology as the "other goods we sell". In other words, Ontario and Quebec are concerned about it, since they export more high technology than natural resources.

As long as the power is in the east, Western Canada, including oil rich Alberta, will always take a back seat to the wishes and desires of the East.

Rod