Fast Facts – Grain, Trains and Autocrats: farmers pay the price of dismantling the Wheat Board

By Dean Harder

Photo: Robert Taylor, Wikimedia.org

A banner 2013 crop year and some rail delays due to cold weather doesn’t account for all our grain transportation woes. Coordination of rail to ships is out of synch: a study by Quorum Corporation found that rail shipments to the West Coast are down 2 per cent from last year, but there are excess ships waiting in port. In the east, grain shipments were down 20 per cent at Thunder Bay as of March with some ships turning away empty.

There is a direct correlation between the loss of the farmer-elected Canadian Wheat Board (CWB) and the current rail transportation boondoggle which will cost prairie farmers over $5 billion in sales.

What Were They Thinking?

By Errol Black

Yesterday, December 7, Justice Douglas Campbell ruled that “Agriculture Minister Gerrry Ritz broke the law by failing to put the matter [of the future of the Canadian Wheat Board – Bill C – 18] to a farm vote first.” The ruling confirmed that the opponents of Bill C – 18 (farmers, directors of the CWB, and the opposition parties) are right and the Harper government is wrong.

Ever since this round of the debate on the future of the CWB was initiated, Harper and Ritz have insisted that they would break the monopoly of the CWB and create an open market for wheat and barley – regardless of the law. In response to Justice Campbell’s ruling Ritz said: “I can tell you that, at the end of the day, this declaration [by the court] will have no effect on continuing to move forward on [grain marketing] freedom for western Canadian farmers. Bill C-18 will pass.”

Ritz’s reaction confirms yet again that Harper and cabinet bullies like Ritz believe themselves to be above the law. This tendency is very worrisome; in the words of the Honourable Justice Campbell:

When government does not comply with the law, this is not merely non-compliance with a particular law, it is an affront to the rule of law itself […].

The question is: what can citizens do to convince the Harper government to comply with the law and put the issue of the future of the CWB to farmers?

Unfortunately, given the Harper government’s contempt for the rule of law and its reckless habit of disregarding the wishes of Canadian farmers in particular and Canadians in general, we should be concerned about the sorts of legislation and policy changes that we’ll be confronted with in the immediate future.

To date, virtually every action of this government is based on promises and commitments that originate with the National Citizens Coalition – under Harper’s leadership – and the Reform Party, including:

• Abolition of the Long-gun registry;
• The omnibus crime bill (Bill C -10);
• Tax cuts for big corporations;
• Anti labour interventions in collective bargaining in the federal jurisdiction; and
• A repudiation of Kyoto and measures to limit the assault on our environment.

The one thing that is common to all of these actions is that they cannot be justified on the basis of factual or analytical evidence. Indeed, the Harper government doesn’t even bother to try and justify these actions. Listen to Minister Toews on Bill C – 10, for example, or Labour Minister Raitt on the anti-labour interventions.

Other matters in the works that are suspect are the austerity measures initiated by Finance Minister, Flaherty, and the expanded role for Canada’s military in combat interventions under the auspices of NATO and the U.S.

The destruction of the Canadian Wheat Board has direct and obvious implications for Manitoba, but we also need to understand the negative impact Harper’s other policies will have on us. Bill C10 will dramatically increase the provinces’ spending on jails and do nothing to make us safer (with the added effect of decreasing spending on essential services); the coming austerity measures will further decrease revenues and provide justification for cutting of all kinds of social programs.

Did those Canadians who voted for Harper understand who/what they were voting for? Did they knowingly bestow such power? What were they thinking?

For the sake of us all, I hope they are having second thoughts.

Prairie farmers won’t "get on" Stephen Harper’s train

by Barbara Toews

          Cartoon by Shawna Nelles



 

“It’s time for the wheat board and others who have been standing in the way to realize that this train is barrelling down a prairie track,” the Prime Minister said. “You’re much better to get on it than to lie on the tracks because this is going ahead. It’s time for the wheat board to go out in a dual marketing environment, to cultivate its customers and provide a competitive service because those customers are going to have choice in the future.” (Globe and Mail, Oct. 11, 2011)



The Harper government will be tabling a bill as early as this week which will take away farmers’ right to collectively market their own ‘Canadian Branded’ wheat around the world, and will hand it over to multinational corporations. The Harper government’s relentless, reckless and dictatorial campaign to get rid of the CWB is just one more example of how our democracy is being eroded. As Canadian citizens, we need to join together and stand up for integrity and the democratic principles we believe in.

Prairie farmers and supporters of the Canadian Wheat Board won’t give up that easily. 

On Friday October 28 at 12:00 noon, Manitobans are invited to meet in front of the Canadian Wheat Board at 423 Main St. to protest another assault on democracy by the Harper Government.

Prairie farmers will be gathering just outside of Winnipeg at the Red River Exhibition grounds for their own meeting earlier in the morning, and many of them will make their way to the Wheat Board offices in a cavalcade to join the peaceful citizens demonstration.

Barbara Toews is a partner in a grain & oilseed farm in southern Manitoba and a Provincial Council of Women Manitoba board member.

Canadian Wheat Board: Politicians Must Stand Up for Farmers

by Ian L. Robson

I seem to be writing a lot about this issue these days. I wish I could be farming. The soil is still very wet and will not support big loads, but weirdly the hay and pasture-land is dried out and not producing—probably compacted and the moisture ran off.

I spoke with a woman following the Brandon Chamber of Commerce (or CJOB radio info-tainment talk show) leaders forum with McFadyen, Selinger, and Gerrard on Monday.She gave me her opinion of Hugh McFadyen’s response to farmers and Manitoban’s over the Federal Government meddling in the affairs of the elected Canadian Wheat Board Directors. 

She thought it unwise to vote for McFadyen because he would not question things that the federal government proposes.

Another woman I spoke with whose brother is a dairy farmer thought that changing the CWB would be okay if we saw the plan from Minister Ritz. She was surprised when I told her that farmers currently have the freedom to sell their grain through the CWB Producer Direct Sales program. Minister Ritz has been careful not to advertise this because it essentially kills his argument that the CWB is restrictive. The CWB is restrictive on the Producer Direct Sales program in this way: The farmer must find a buyer who will pay a large premium over the going market price—which happens sometimes. This allows farmers who want to increase the market value to do so while also benefitting from the extra profit.

At the leaders’ debate in Brandon, McFadyen said that the CWB decision is a done deal and farmers should prepare for life after the CWB. 

Both Selinger and Gerrard said listen to the majority of farmers who themselves paid for a democratic process to determine whether support for the Single Desk continues.

Manitoba and its farmers have a lot to lose. Farmers know it and this is why the majority voted in support of the Single Desk that CWB provides.

Without the Desk we are merely transferring wealth from the farmer to the grain trader and we already see these traders licking their chops—share price of multinational Viterra increased immediately after Ritz made his announcement. 

For more information about this issue and to get involved, go to the Canadian Wheat Board Alliance website.

Ian L. Robson is a cattle and grain farmer from Deleau, Manitoba