Commentary for January 19, 2007
WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?
Free our farmers.
Will the Harper government succeed in stripping the Wheat Board of its obsolete monopoly powers?
A commentary by Morris W. Dorosh
People not acquainted with prairie agricultural politics are increasingly baffled by the events surrounding the Canadian Wheat Board. Why is the Harper government, overwhelmingly supported in rural western constituencies, bent on destroying an institution which farmers seem to support and value? Why is the government ignoring the will of grain farmers as expressed in recent elections of Wheat Board directors? Why is it creating uncertainty which may jeopardize the ability of the Board to market Canadian grain?
These are consequences of a sharp division of opinion. But the disagreement is not so much between a united front of farmers and the Harper government as between two broad groups of farmers separated by an ideological fault line. On one side are prairie farmers to whom the Wheat Board system is a source of emotional and economic security, whether real or imagined. On the other are those who doubt that the system delivers any economic benefit and chafe at the restrictions imposed on them in the management of their businesses, not to mention the Board's arbitrary and autocratic practices. This split is of long standing and emotionally superheated. Often brother is pitted against brother and father against son.
to read more ....
http://www.prairiecentre.com/
WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?
Free our farmers.
Will the Harper government succeed in stripping the Wheat Board of its obsolete monopoly powers?
A commentary by Morris W. Dorosh
People not acquainted with prairie agricultural politics are increasingly baffled by the events surrounding the Canadian Wheat Board. Why is the Harper government, overwhelmingly supported in rural western constituencies, bent on destroying an institution which farmers seem to support and value? Why is the government ignoring the will of grain farmers as expressed in recent elections of Wheat Board directors? Why is it creating uncertainty which may jeopardize the ability of the Board to market Canadian grain?
These are consequences of a sharp division of opinion. But the disagreement is not so much between a united front of farmers and the Harper government as between two broad groups of farmers separated by an ideological fault line. On one side are prairie farmers to whom the Wheat Board system is a source of emotional and economic security, whether real or imagined. On the other are those who doubt that the system delivers any economic benefit and chafe at the restrictions imposed on them in the management of their businesses, not to mention the Board's arbitrary and autocratic practices. This split is of long standing and emotionally superheated. Often brother is pitted against brother and father against son.
to read more ....
http://www.prairiecentre.com/
Comment