Bill Toews Publicly Disses Minister

[Fransisco]

To find out what a class act the CWB board of directors are and the kind of respect they show a federal Cabinet Minister who just happens to be their boss [URL="http://www.siemenssays.com/?p=4899 "]click here,[/URL] and have a listen.

It's from earlier today.

[Fransisco]

Okay all you brainiac's explain to me how a CWB director publicly calling Strahl an idiot in an open meeting furthers your cause. Anyone?

[Fransisco]

I thought the couple of cups of coffee explanation on the $1000.00 'stress bonus' was bad.

But this is sinking down to a whole new level.

[parsley]

National Post
4 April, 2007
Letters
Ken Ritter

Against the grain


Re: Voting out a monopolist, Colby Cosh, March 30.

Mr. Cosh is no doubt an expert in marketing grain and in running a business.

I would ask him and his readers the following question: Would you invest in a company whose success is 100% dependent on its competitors?

That is exactly the scenario in the barley ballot of Chuck Strahl, the Minister of Agriculture.

That is why we, the board of directors of the Canadian Wheat Board, have stated consistently that the CWB cannot be viable in this scenario.

The real choice farmers face is the continuance of the single desk where farmers band together to market as one, or the open market where 75,000 farmers compete against each other to sell to a handful of buyers.

Farmers were not offered that real choice in this plebiscite.

Ken Ritter, chairman, CWB board of directors and a grain farmer from Kindersley, Sask.



Note from Parsley:

"Would you invest in a company whose success is 100% dependent on these fruitcake directors?"

[parsley]

The Leader-Post (Regina) 4 March, 2007

Kevin Hursh

Gov't decision on barley right one

Despite its atrocious handling of the issue, the federal Conservative government has come to the correct conclusion: barley should be removed from the single-desk selling authority of the Canadian Wheat Board.

It was easy to predict that the federal barley plebiscite results would be discredited.

There should have been two questions on the ballot so that producers could choose the single desk or the open market for barley.

Instead, the feds muddied the issue by using three questions.

The contentious dual-marketing option -- "I would like the option to market my barley to the Canadian Wheat Board or any other domestic or foreign buyer " -- garnered 48.4 per cent of the votes.

Agriculture Minister Chuck Strahl is adding up the 48.4 per cent who voted for dual marketing with the 13.8 per cent who said the CWB should have no role in marketing barley. At 62 per cent, he says the will of farmers can't be ignored.

Single-desk supporters say the dual marketing option is not possible, that a viable CWB cannot exist in an open market.

Thus the debate continues to rage over the validity of the plebiscite.

In addition to the three-question format, opponents point to problems with the voter's list and the low return rate for ballots. For some reason, only 29,000 producers participated.

On top of all this, Strahl actively campaigned for an end to the single desk, and basically said that his government was going to provide market choice no matter what the plebiscite outcome.

The plebiscite was simply a form of "consultation," he said.

Despite all these shortcomings, it's clear that the CWB does not enjoy enough producer support to continue with monopoly marketing powers over barley.

Before the federal plebiscite, the Manitoba government held its own producer vote using a two-question format.

Manitoba claims the participation rate was 65 per cent and 62 per cent of respondents picked the single desk rather than the open market.

In the federal plebiscite, 50.6 per cent of the ballots from Manitoba favoured the retention of the single desk.

The difference between 50.6 per cent and 62 per cent apparently depends on how you ask the question, who is on the voter's list and who is conducting the vote.

Across the entire Prairie region, 37.8 per cent of those participating in the federal vote picked retention of the single desk.

Had it been a two-question ballot, perhaps that number would have been as high as 50 per cent.

Maybe it would have even been a majority.

However, any way you look at it, 40 to 60 per cent of producers want marketing choice. Many of these people probably believe that they can have their cake and eat it too -- that they can have an open market and a viable CWB.

Producers should be well aware of this debate and they can make up their own minds.

Voters have the right to be wrong. Just look at many past provincial and federal elections.

Unlike other elections, it doesn't really matter whether market-choice supporters make up 40 or 60 per cent of the total. Whatever the number, it's obviously too many to ignore.

In general, larger producers tend to favour market choice. So even if market choice supporters are only 40 per cent by number, they likely account for a majority of the production.

The CWB monopoly infringes on the freedoms of producers. In order for this to be acceptable, the approval rating should be well over 60 per cent.

It's sad when a marketing tool developed for producers and governed by producers no longer has overwhelming support.

The producer-elected directors of the CWB have had many years to make their mark.

Despite many new pricing options, support for single-desk barley marketing is not strong enough for it to continue.

The jury is still out on CWB marketing of wheat and durum. Hopefully any future plebiscites won't be a circus like the barley vote was.

- Kevin Hursh is a consulting agrologist and farmer based in Saskatoon. He can be reached at kevin@hursh.ca.


Note from Parsley:

Hursh makes up Hursh rules!

"The CWB monopoly infringes on the freedoms of producers. In order for this to be acceptable, the approval rating should be well over 60 per cent. "

Why not 58% Or 46%? Hursh is hung up on numbers. The POINT IS:

Freedoms should never be for sale

[parsley]

WINNIPEG FREE PRESS
April 4,2007

Larry Kusch


CWB fight off to court? Legal action will finally settle issue, director says

A Canadian Wheat Board director suggested Tuesday that Ottawa's plans to open up Prairie barley marketing will wind up in court.

Bill Toews, who farms at Kane, wouldn't say whether the wheat board would be behind such a lawsuit.

But he said the Winnipeg-based grain seller has received a legal opinion that the Harper government cannot end the wheat board's monopoly through regulation, as it has stated it will do.

"Whether the board challenges an order, or whether someone else does, there's going to be legal challenges," Toews told reporters outside a Canada Grains Council meeting in Winnipeg.

Earlier, Toews confronted Agriculture Minister Chuck Strahl for suggesting the board was remiss for not coming up with an operating plan to sell barley in a marketing-choice environment.

With Strahl standing at the podium taking questions from grain industry officials, Toews told the meeting that wheat board staff had tried several times to address the issue, but had failed to come up with a proposal that would "create material value" for farmers (without the monopoly).

He said it was "misinformation" on Strahl's part to suggest that the wheat board hasn't looked at the issue carefully.

When Toews was finished, Strahl did not respond, simply saying, "Next question." Ottawa has announced that it plans to end the wheat board's sales monopoly on barley on Aug. 1, the start of the new crop year. The decision followed a Prairie plebiscite in which 62 per cent of farmers indicated they wanted some form of marketing choice, Strahl said.

Farmers must now market export-destined feed barley and all malting barley through the wheat board. They're free to sell feed barley directly to buyers on the domestic market.

Strahl told reporters Tuesday he hopes that those opposed to opening up the marketing of Prairie barley will "respect the will of farmers" and not take the government to court.

"You can always fight something; you can take them to court. You can use farmers' money to try to slow down a process, but what you're slowing down is the clearly expressed will of the farmers themselves." Strahl said that a draft of the regulations ending the wheat board's barley monopoly should be ready in a couple of weeks.

He said the government's own legal opinion is that it can proceed by either regulation or legislation.

Strahl said that farmers want the wheat board to be one of their marketing options in a new open-market environment.

"It's not that they (the wheat board) can't do it; they can do it. It's just a matter of will," he said.

Meanwhile, a Manitoba farm leader said he didn't think that a possible legal challenge to the federal government's plans to end the wheat board's barley monopoly would affect planting decisions this spring.

David Rolfe said in an interview that grain producers have probably already decided what crops they will grow, and prices -- not politics -- would have been the deciding factor on whether to plant barley.

larry.kusch@freepress.mb.ca



Note from Parsley:

Keep working Agri-ville farmers. You have a lot of court time to pay for

[Fransisco]

Isn't it interesting how what gets said and what gets reported are so different.

Go back to the top and listen to what Bill Toews actually said(more like ranted) and then compare it to what the Free Press reporter wrote.

[liberty]

According to Comrade "Bitter" Ritter:

"The real choice farmers face is the continuance of the single desk where farmers band together to market as one, or the open market where 75,000 farmers compete against each other to sell to a handful of buyers.

Farmers were not offered that real choice in this plebiscite."

I'm amazed at how often these guys can keep a straight face when they repeatedly play the same broken record. Farmers were most certainly offered that "real choice" in this plebiscite. If most farmers actually shared Ritter's view that the idea of a CWB competing in an open market is utterly nonsensical, they could have just ignored that question in the plebiscite and voted in favour of the single desk. It is blatantly obvious that most farmers do not agree with Ritter; why can't he find the courage to accept this?

To suggest that the mere inclusion of the open market option on the ballot was somehow unfair is to view farmers as a bunch of brain-dead rubes who cannot possibly be trusted to comprehend the consequences of the choices they make.

The more people like Ken Ritter harp on this issue, the more they shoot themselves in the foot.

[Fransisco]

I thought somebody else might have brought this up by now but since that hasn't happened I'll ask the question.

Should Bill Toews appologize to the minister for being so disrespectful?

I think that he should.

Whether Toews agrees with the minister or not is irrelevant. The office, and the position deserves a certain level of respect. Toews crossed the line with his angry name calling, he should apologize.

[silverback]

Why do we only hear from these socialist loving directors?

Why do the supposed pro choice directors not make their voice heard?

Do they lose it once they get to winnipeg?

[Ron]

Silverback, are they allowed to speak out against the CWB? I thought James Chatenay (SP?) got chewed out a couple years back for disagreeing with the others? Anybody else remember anything about that?