Black Swans and Elephants. The Apas Summit.

[blackpowder]

Yes.
Secretly, I don't even agree with "fining" a company for profits.
Total restructure of wgrf indeed

[westernvicki]

I concur, BlackPowder.
In one discussion, we talked about the failure to execute the new policy, and what we had done in the last 50 years. I said the CWB: the War Measures Act of 1945 took us 67 years to remove.

Australia and the USA have equal, elected, effective Senates to balance to urban geography. We do not.

Australia has developed a very effective system of farmers and policy.

It was a miracle APAS was able to get Ag in a room, even with Black Swans nesting.

We are amazing farmers but at policy we suck, and now that suction sound is all around!

The evidence in the fact that Ottawa will promise 2 billion to a 14 Billion dollar auto sector and 100 million to a 150 Billion dollar industry.


Time to fish: reach out and try to find leaders.. surely there are folks younger that us who can take the torch....

Tyler McCann is my pick to lead the think tank workshops. And it needs to be workshops: a deep dive with an end goal.

We need to hear from young farmers and mega farmers, too!

[blackpowder]

Think tank.
How about a lobby group with teeth.
Think NRA.

[westernvicki]

Chris Dekker retired STEP Ceo had the best slide that summed up the frustration with Trade Wars, Ag politics and policy!

[Misterjade9]

I have to admit I am more of a troll than an active participant on this site, I liked reading other producers thoughts and opinions but seldom comment or reply.
When I read Blackpowder"s responses I could have sworn I had wrote them. I do think that a sense of apathy has taken hold of us as primary producers, don't misunderstand me, we are still very passionate about being good stewards of the land and producing a safe and reliable product but decades of stagnant policy and some would even argue hostile policies from Ottawa have left us somewhat indifferent.

I have always envisioned a producer representative group along the lines of the Farm Bureau. My grandparents, aunts an uncles and now my cousins have all been or are members of their counties Farm Bureau along with being directors and leaders of their respective producer groups. It has always seemed to me as an efficient streamlined method for producer organizations to get their concerns up the ladder to local then state and finally federal government under a single voice. I was hoping that was what APAS would morph into, I will preface that our RM does not belong to APAS or that I have any involvement with them. I haven't seen a consistent level of leadership from them and the optics surrounding the latest senate appointments I think has soured a few. That being said I think this Ag Summit was a good step in the right direction. I believe that a more efficient use of our checkoff dollars and the money from the WGRF would be for a single voice with the power of policy writers, lawyers and lobbyists to deliver our message in Ottawa.

Now that unfortunately brings us to the political side of things and in my opinion none of this will matter until Canada has some sort of political reform that allows us to hold Ottawa to some kind of accountability when dealing with not only ag but all of western Canada's industries. I don't even pretend to know what that is, does it mean an equal and elected senate, does it mean economic unions between western provinces, does it mean referendums on separation? That is all above my pay grade but there are people out there a lot smarter than me.

Comments and criticisms welcome.

[blackpowder]

Methinks thou art too bashful.

[westernvicki]

We live and love this dysfunctional system where we find ourselves. We have built a great nation in what is a colonial nation where central Canada owns the power and makes the rules. Equalization, for example, is an unfair formula. Ottawa choosing EVs over AG is also unfair.

However, what has ag done in response?
Have we communicated to Canadians to explain what is going on? Do we advocate for ourselves? No, we have left it to the MSM, and they are mute.

Which is why I am also advocating for a communication strategy to engage citizens in the fact what we do out west. I can tell you most will not know that we are the most sustainable farmers in the world, contributing billions to net zero every year. WE have not shared with them the level of destruction the Trade war Tsunami could create.
We have not asked to be included in Team Canada too!

The underlying reason we can so easily be ignored is that we fail our own story.

Our collective collateral despite 150 billion and 1 in 9 jobs being attributed to us, is very low.

What the APAS gathering exposed was our failure to deal with solutions: a gut punch when we are already down.

What Australia has shown us is that ag policy can be done a lot better, as they do.
We have a similar multi-level representation. We just do not engage any sector as a think tank with a list of priorities and execution solutions.

We are easy to take advantage of and ignore.

Yes, we have structural differences: the US has an Equal, Elected, and Effective bicameral balance. Australis does too, but indeed Australians demanded that change and achieved it. 8 provinces must like 2 running the show! .

We leave too much on the table by not playing our own hand.

We cannot continue to ignore the dysfunction.

Who is stepping up? Who is organizing the think tank workshop?

Grain Growers? APAS?

Who is stepping up?

[westernvicki]

Methinks thou art too bashful.

Me thinks everyone should get engaged and unbashful themselves!
We have so much to gain.

[blackpowder]

Maybe it fits under the heading of intergenerational trauma.
Even the WCWGA is counting navel lint.
Is there someplace to challenge status quo? This takes years.

[bucket]

The prerequisite for being ag minister should be you are an actual farmer. Ag Ministers use to be the best of the best. Now look at who gets appointed.

When Carney took over as PM he was thinking of bringing in outside unelected people like Christy Clark or Jean Charest as ministers . Why not find someone for ag minister that understands farming .

I can tell you , I am not too impressed with John Barlow from the conservatives far as western canadian farming goes. He he was indeed interested he would say something when every other industry gets help, bailouts or startup money while agriculture receives nothing.

Other industries like EVs are years away from fruition and Northvolt has already sucked billions out while go broke in the process without producing anything. At this point this is where farm groups should highlight farmer's contribution to the economy against the failures of government investments that will never stand on their own. I can also throw the auto industry and the steel industry as well have been on the tit for quite a while all in the name of jobs for unions.