Tories sinking to new depths on barley - Bruce Johnstone

[chuckChuck]

Tories sinking to new depths on barley

Bruce Johnstone
The Leader-Post

Saturday, March 31, 2007

So Agriculture Minister Chuck Strahl got his wish and 62 per cent of 29,000 western Canadian farmers voted to get rid of the Canadian Wheat Board's monopoly over barley sales.

"What a great day for western Canadian farmers,'' Strahl enthused. "Sixty-two per cent of barley producers said they want their freedom of choice to market their own barley ... We are going to give them the choice that farmers demanded.''

Maybe it was a great day for Strahl and Stephen Harper, but I'm not so sure it was a great day for western Canadian farmers and Canadian democracy.

First of all, 62 per cent of farmers didn't vote clearly for marketing choice, as Strahl would have us believe.

In fact, 45 per cent of the 15,300 Saskatchewan producers who voted -- roughly half of all the producers polled -- wanted the single desk retained, as did more than 50 per cent of 3,700 Manitoba producers.

Only in Alberta, where the government campaigned against the CWB monopoly on barley marketing, did a clear majority (63 per cent) favour marketing choice.

But what does marketing choice really mean?

In addition to options to keep the status quo or remove barley from the board, the plebiscite posed this loaded option to producers: "I would like the option to market my barley to the Canadian Wheat Board or any domestic or foreign buyer."

Could some producers have been fooled into believing that they could have their cake and eat it too? In other words, keep the Canadian Wheat Board but have the option to market their grain elsewhere?

Why wouldn't they? That's what Strahl kept telling them, even though Strahl's own handpicked task force said operating the Canadian Wheat Board in an open market was unworkable.

As the National Farmers Union president Stewart Wells noted, ask a misleading question and you'll get a misleading answer. Wells said many farmers voted for Option 2, thinking they were supporting the CWB.

In fact, it was surprising the Tory government didn't receive a more resounding vote in favour of "marketing choice,'' given that the deck was stacked against the CWB from the get-go.

Here are just a few examples of the questionable tactics used: misleading plebiscite options; issuing "gag orders'' against CWB directors and staff; firing the CWB president during the election; arbitrarily changing the voters' list during the election; disenfranchising thousands of producers; sending multiple, numbered ballots to producers, then calling them to ask which ballot they wanted counted; no third-party spending limits; etc.

The list of dirty tricks and undemocratic practices (no public voters' list, no secret ballot, no third-party spending limits) would make a Third World dictator blush.

But it appears that Strahl and company aren't finished yet. Not content to trample over producers' democratic rights, the Conservatives want to push through changes to the CWB without passing legislation.

Strahl believes barley marketing can be dropped by simply changing the CWB's regulations. The CWB thinks otherwise and is threatening to take the government to court.

The last time this happened (when then-agriculture minister Charlie Mayer removed barley from the board in 1993), the Tory government lost the battle in the courts and were defeated in the following general election.

I'm not suggesting that the barley plebiscite challenge will bring down the Harper government. But the government knows it would face an uphill battle to pass anti-CWB legislation in this minority Parliament.

Therefore, Strahl is attempting to do indirectly (change the board's regulations) what he can't do directly (pass legislation ending the monopoly).

Whatever one thinks about the Canadian Wheat Board, the tactics employed by the Conservative government during its year-long battle with the CWB are reprehensible, undemocratic and possibly illegal.

All Canadians should be concerned about the depths to which the Conservatives will sink in order to sink the Canadian Wheat Board.

- Bruce Johnstone is the Leader-Post's financial editor.
© The Leader-Post (Regina) 2007

[ridgie]

Bruce Johnstone is one of the most left wing journalists tat Saskatchewan has. His articles almost always make me sick.

[charliep]

I am amazed how the above article and the edmonton journal stick straight with the politics of single desk and fail to even comment on the impact of the CWB on barley marketing (both good and bad).

Feed barley already is an open market with the domestic feed market by far outperforming anything the CWB has offered. The issue is the malt barley market and the politics around the CWB single desk.

I always look for vision. If the CWB were to maintain barley, what would happen differently (if anything)? Separate pools for domestic/export? 2 row and 6 row? Cash pricing similar to DPC for wheat? Pricing outside the pooling system for a percentage of the malt selections? Open domestic market for maltsters/export prices pooled? Or more of the same?

So you and others want to move your peers off dead center. Do something other than employ fear tactics. Present a business case (something I heard a lot of in a recent webcast) and give the industry a vision of what a new barley world will look like.

Or maybe you have given up on barley and are now positioning for the wheat plebiscite. As my Dad used to tell me, be carefull what you ask for because it may come true.

[parsley]

This is about money charliep.

SDA has an interesting post wecommending this link:


http://www.thiscanada.com/2007/04/02/dion-to-restrict-basic-freedoms


Parsley

[TOM4CWB]

Charlie,

THe general public will soon loose patience with the CWB totally... and then it will be gone.

If the CWB is continually irresponsible, refuses to provide the services the grain farming community really needs...

At this point... it will hurt "designated area" grain farmers' pride and feelings that the CWB kills itself.... but I get the sense few CDN city folk will shed any tears out side of Winnipeg or Sask.!

Being that 97% of folks are not farmers... it is not hard to comprehend how after the CWB vote on Barley... the Conservatives are proven correct on CWB policy for the average normal uninvolved Canadian Citizen.

[chuckChuck]

Yes Charlie we need a business plan, which is exactly what the CWB and the CWB Board of Directors are responsible for. It is just too bad Chuck Strahl couldn't keep his ideolgical hands off and let the elected Board do their job.

What amazes me is how those who are critical of the CWB are more than willing to let Chuck Strahl use any method to get what they want. What ever happened to respect for democratic principles and fair debate and fair decisions? Ask yourself, would you tolerate this kind of undemocratic behaviour in your local municipal
government? Strahl would not be able to live in his community if he tried the same BS with local issues. So why do we tolerate it at the federal level?

There are alot of Conservatives out their who should be speaking up about the way this issue is being handled.
I don't care what side the isssue you are on but if you stand by and let the dictators have their way pretty soon you find your self in an ugly place.

When the mainstream columnists and editorials like Johnstone start to go
against you you better pay attention.

[parsley]

Your comment is akin to saying Rod Flaman wrote a letter to the Editor in the Leader Post, and since he did, we'd better watch out.

Sigh.

Parsley

[AdamSmith]

"Yes Charlie we need a business plan, which is exactly what the CWB and the CWB Board of Directors are responsible for. It is just too bad Chuck Strahl couldn't keep his ideolgical hands off and let the elected Board do their job."

Ch Chuck, the business plan required has to pertain to THE CWB COMPETING IN AN OPEN MARKET. It also needs to be reasonable and within the context of what the existing assets of the cwb are. Presenting a business plan with a wish list a hundred miles long and a price tag of over a billion dollars to be covered by the taxpayers of Canada is NOT a business plan, what the cwb have publicly presented is a letter to Santa, complete with the tantrum tears if you don't get exactly what you want.

"What amazes me is how those who are critical of the CWB are more than willing to let Chuck Strahl use any method to get what they want. What ever happened to respect for democratic principles and fair debate and fair decisions?"

Yeah just like Ralph Goodale did the cwb's bidding before, now Strahl is doing the bidding of the free market supporters. You live by the sword, you die by the sword. By the way Ch Chuck read your CWB Act, I'm sure those judges who will have to listen to the rants and ravings of cwb lawyers will be brushing up on it. If you clowns go into any legal proceeding with the conviction that the cwb is a sovereign unto itself, your goofier that I thought.

"I don't care what side the issue you are on but if you stand by and let the dictators have their way pretty soon you find your self in an ugly place."

Dictators? Are you guys really that dense?

The Minister is planning on letting anyone who wants to participate in the buying and selling of barley, do so. The Minister is going to let anyone who wishes to do so export or process barley. The Minister is wanting to do away with the laws and regulations that up to now have permitted the cwb to throw farmers in jail for simply selling their own grain to the buyers of their choice. This doesn't in anyway shape or form fall under the category of dictatorial. It falls under the category of Liberator.

Ch Chuck, a little advice. For your words to be effective they must apply. Step back a moment man and look at what you guys are saying and apply those same words to any other situation and you will see what nonsense you guys are spewing.

38% said keep it the same as today. 48% said change the rules so people can do what they want, and if they still want to deal with the cwb, let them. 14% said change the rules so people can do what they want, but for gods sake shut that morally bankrupt place in Winnipeg down, and make it so nothing like it can ever exist again in our free society. (My personal favorite)

"When the mainstream columnists and editorials like Johnstone start to go
against you better pay attention."

Your kidding, right? From what I've read of this man he can hardly be considered mainstream, Maybe in a place like Cuba or Venezuela. If you can't grasp the importance of property rights and the rights to free association and how the are the cornerstones to wealth creation and a modern capitalist society, you can hardly be considered mainstream nor credible.

[TOM4CWB]

ChuckChuck,

Most Conservatives I know said there should not have been a vote at all... yet Goodale forced one, got exactly the result everyone expected... and now the world as we know it is going to end?

Jan 24 2006... the sun came up in the east... just like before... Jan 23... and August 2nd, God willing, the sun will come up in the east again like it has for all time.

Who exactly is "sinking to new depths on barley"?

ChuckChuck;
Be honest for just one moment...Who in there right mind could claim the CWB has done anything but hurt "designated area" barley growers in the past 5 years?

[AdamSmith]

This from a National Commentator, and he appears to be ok with the governments handling of this. Hmm.

Wheat Board calls kettle black
Defenders of the monopoly denounce farmers plebiscite as 'undemocratic'

Lorne Gunter, Freelance
Published: Friday, March 30, 2007

Wednesday, the federal government announced that an overwhelming 62.2 per cent of Western barley farmers want the right to choose to whom they may sell their grain -- the Canadian Wheat Board or private grain buyers. Just 37.8 per cent want the board to maintain its current monopoly over barley for human consumption and export.

The results are all the more remarkable given what the wheat board, its defenders and federal opposition parties have done during the last six months to scare-monger farmers into keeping the monopoly alive.

Farmers were given three options on their ballots: Retain "single-desk marketing" (the current monopoly), move to dual marketing in which producers may sell either to the board or private companies, or do away with the board altogether.

The board's supporters first complained the government had no right to hold a plebiscite at all. Two-thirds of the board's 15 directors are elected by farmers. So, supporters insisted, there was no need for a vote.

In a bizarre twist of logic, some supporters even charged the plebiscite was undemocratic. (Holding a vote was undemocratic, not holding it democratic. Go figure.)

The board and its fans then complained when the government announced it would ask producers a three-pronged question. Wayne Easter, a Liberal MP and former minister of agriculture, charged that the question was "deliberately misleading" and the plebiscite "a fraud being perpetrated on farmers."

What Easter and others neglected to mention is that the board itself has for years asked farmers the same sort of three-option question about marketing in its annual producer survey.

In its 2006 producer survey, the board found that 65 per cent of producers wanted either dual marketing or no wheat board at all, while just 29 per cent wanted the monopolistic status quo. Yet somehow, neither Easter nor the board's defenders saw these results as deceiving or fraudulent.

Also, during the just-concluded plebiscite, the federal government ordered the board not to take sides, to let farmers decide for themselves what marketing methods they wanted. Nonetheless, the board disregarded these instructions and threatened farmers that if they voted for dual marketing that would be the same as voting to disband the board. If it lost its monopoly over all barley sales and exports, the board warned, it would (like a petulant child) refuse to participate in a competitive barley market. Either vote to give us all your grain or lose the option of marketing through us entirely. Still, nearly two-thirds of Prairie barley growers chose market freedom over monopoly.

Interestingly, when conducting its own producer surveys, the board included the dual-market option, implying that it would continue to market barley even in an open environment. Indeed, when Ottawa briefly permitted a dual market for barley in the early 1990s, the board continued to market barley and competed to get farmers to sell it their grain rather than to private buyers.

But this time, the instant there was a real chance farmers might demand market choice again, and a real possibility a new government might give it to them, the board suddenly began to insist dual marketing was impossible. Talk about trying to manipulate the vote.

Also, in order to foster the illusion that market choice was impossible, the monopoly's supporters misrepresented the recommendations of the Conservative government's own task force on dual marketing. Many said Agriculture Minister Chuck Strahl's fact-finding committee had determined dual marketing was impossible; opt for choice and farmers could kiss goodbye the idea of pooling their crops with the board to market en masse.

Rather, what the task force said was that some producers somehow thought dual marketing meant the board would retain its monopoly while farmers would still be free to choose. The task force concluded it would be better to call the option "marketing choice," but that in an open barley market the board would still be "a vigorous participant through which producers could voluntarily choose to market their grain."

In a further attempt to distort the outcome of the Conservatives' efforts to give farmers more options, back in December opposition MPs on the House of Commons standing committee on agriculture used their majority to block witnesses who favoured an open barley market. Wheat board directors opposed to ending the monopoly were permitted to give testimony, while directors in favour of the move where denied a chance to appear.

Yet despite all the game playing, misinformation and scare tactics, barley producers still voted decisively to free themselves from the wheat board's collectivist yoke.

So what has been the board's reaction? A threat to sue the federal government to prevent it from implementing the results of the vote.

The curious thing about that move is that all along the board has insisted it is the true voice of farmers. As the farmers' elected representatives, the directors maintain, they are operating according to producers' wishes. Yet now that we clearly know what producers want, the board is contemplating going to court to save itself from having to comply.

Yeah. And the Conservatives are the ones they call undemocratic.

lgunter@shaw.ca

© The Edmonton Journal 2007

[AdamSmith]

Here's another nationally read opinion writer who seems to be ok with what Strahl and Harper are doing, Isn't this interesting. These guys musn't be on the cwb payrole.

Voting out a monopolist

Colby Cosh, National Post

Published: Friday, March 30, 2007

It is fascinating to watch the Canadian Wheat Board (CWB) and its supporters try to squirm around the results of the agriculture department's barley plebiscite, whose results were announced Wednesday. The Harper government now has a formal mandate to liberate Western barley growers from the CWB's antiquated export monopoly, if it even needed one; as CWB chairman Ken Ritter admitted glumly after the announcement, "The results of the barley plebiscite? are not overly surprising. The CWB has been surveying farmers every year for the past 10 years and these results appear to be consistent with our annual findings."

Thirty-eight percent of Western growers voted in favour of retaining the traditional single desk, 48% wanted the ability to choose between sticking with the CWB or marketing their crop themselves and 14% voted for the complete abolition of board marketing. Although the CWB opposed giving farmers three ballot choices, on the premise that dual marketing is impossible, the latter figure by itself is enough to establish the moral case for eliminating the board's control of every grain of Western barley. A civilized country does not give an institution total economic power over the one in seven who opposes that institution, even if there are benefits to the other six.

But on Wednesday the Liberals trotted out Ralph Goodale and a few other surviving prairie Grits to denounce the results of the balloting, calling them "concocted" -- a term whose overtones will probably not sit too well with the ballot administrators at KMPG. The NDP's Wheat Board critic, Alex Atamanenko, called the vote a "sham from the beginning and?an insult to democracy and farmers alike."

Given that the outcome is consistent with the CWB's own longtime soundings of farmer opinion, the vote must have been a very incompetent concoction indeed. Ritter's admission suggests that the last year or so of squabbling over the board's right to spend farmer income campaigning for its own death-grip on barley and over the various features of the ballot was one long waste of time. The plebiscite told us only what we already knew five years ago, which is that life will be a little harder for the board in a competitive environment but that farmers are in favour of creating one all the same.

Indeed, the best summary of the emerging situation may have come from a Drumheller, Alta.-area barley grower and supporter of the single desk who was interviewed Wednesday by the Bloomberg financial news service. "The vote weakens the role of the Wheat Board an awful lot," Ron Leonhardt told Bloomberg. "The board just becomes another company."

That, indeed, is pretty much the idea. But of course in some ways it won't become "just another company" right away. It will still enjoy the basic seller loyalty that was expressed just as strongly in the plebiscite as the desire for choice, and it will maintain the competitive advantage of government guarantees on pool payments to growers. It is likely to maintain a tight rein on powerful buyers abroad, especially state-owned ones that have ideological allergies to private agribusiness and agencies that use Canadian federal loans to buy Canadian barley.

But if you believe the officials of the board, leveraging those advantages is likely to be too much trouble. "A plan to transition the CWB completely out of barley may be the only realistic option if the single desk is dismantled," warned Ritter two days before the vote announcement. He promulgated an "analysis" by his fellow directors, claiming to show that "without a radical transformation of the CWB into a grain company with a complete range of physical assets and a large capital infusion, the CWB could not market barley." In case anyone had any trouble interpreting this "transformation," the chairman helpfully added that "ownership of both port and country grain facilities could help ensure the CWB's competitiveness with customers and farmers."

It may be that some method of cash capitalizing the CWB is desirable (guess who would pay for that, or for a mass takeover of terminal capacity), but on the whole it sounds as though Ritter is using the plebiscite as an excuse to draw up an ambitious Christmas list, implicitly conjuring the spectacle of oceans of golden grain mouldering in Canadian fields while the world's beer supply evaporates to a trickle. We don't yet know what fraction of the crop the CWB will lose when farmers are allowed to walk out, but apparently even the tiniest rebellion by a handful of pro-choice miscreants will be enough to induce a total loss of competitiveness.

More probably, though, the Board will eventually stop proclaiming the apocalypse and at last make an adult adjustment to the new reality.


ColbyCosh@gmail.com

[AdamSmith]

This quote just got me laughing.

"He promulgated an "analysis" by his fellow directors, claiming to show that "without a radical transformation of the CWB into a grain company with a complete range of physical assets and a large capital infusion, the CWB could not market barley."

I can just imagine what that "analysis" consisted of!

Ken Ritter: So Bill uh, what uh, what do we do now?

Bill Toews: Quit I guess, Cargill has all those big cement things they put grain in and we don't have those, but ooh I'm so envious of Cargill and those big cement things you put grain in, I really really want some of that. It's just not fair Ken, Cargill has such a big one and ours is, oh crap, we don't have one at all. I just don't think the girls, er I mean the farmers will want to be with us when we have no ... well you know.

Ian, Rod, the other Bill and Kyle, all in unison: Uh huh, Yup, Yup, I agree.

Ken Ritter: Thanks gentlemen for the useful and poignant "analysis"

[ridgie]

"What amazes me is how those who are critical of the CWB are more than willing to let Chuck Strahl use any method to get what they want. What ever happened to respect for democratic principles and fair debate and fair decisions? Ask yourself, would you tolerate this kind of undemocratic behaviour in your local municipal
government? Strahl would not be able to live in his community if he tried the same BS with local issues. So why do we tolerate it at the federal level?"

You should remember whern you point your finger at the feds.......There are three pointing right back at you...
There has been nothing more UNDEMOCRATIC than the CWB and its antics since its inception!!

[chuckChuck]

Since you are all such opponents of the CWB and Marketing Boards how do you explain the Conservatives support for supply management marketing boards? It would be pretty easy to find a National Post column slaming supply management marketing boards. Are they not an infringement on the individual rights of farmers? Why do we have a double standard on marketing boards in this country? Why do you guys vote for a Government that support dairy and poultry boards and then cry that the CWB takes away my freedom when it comes to the Wheat Board? Please explain.

[Fransisco]

Well chuckChuck why don’t you think about it this way.

Since you are all such opponents of a voluntary board and free markets how do you explain the Liberal and NDP support for free markets in canola, hogs and other commodities? It is pretty easy to find articles singing the praises of supply management and the CWB and slamming (by the way it is ‘slamming’ not ‘slaming’) free markets in general. If markets don’t work, if all they do is leave poverty, chaos and misery in their wake are they not a menace to society? If marketing boards are such a good thing and work so well why the double standard? We should have marketing boards for all commodities and every product. Why do you guys vote for a government that on the one hand supports marketing boards while at the same time allows the free market to spread such misery and destruction in all of these other areas? Please explain.