Big Sky Farms of Saskatchewan has about 50,000 sows. Big Sky is owned approximately 70% by the Provincial Government. It is probably the largest government owned hog farm in the world now that free enterprise has been adapted by former communist countries. Saskatchewan has in all operations just under 100,000 sows total in the last census of swine. Consequently, Big Sky is approximately 50% of the province’s sow herd.
Last month the Saskatchewan government announced a $20 subsidy for all hogs marketed from July 1, 2008 until January 31,2009.
Update - A representative from Sask Agriculture called to clarify: the Saskatchewan Cattle and Hog Support Program has a cap of $2 million per operation, (contrary to the $12 million calculation in the linked item).
I asked if the program applied to Big Sky, and she replied that yes, they are eligible to apply for the subsidy.
So, I asked if Big Sky had applied. She said "I can't speak to that". When asked if that meant she didn't know, or if she simply wouldn't say, she clarified that she didn't personally know, but that she wouldn't be able to divulge that information if she did.
First time I've heard of this...This situation definitely needs more press....
This almost makes the CBC seem justified......NOT!!!!
Talk about pork!
I'm not fully up to speed on Big Sky's situation but I do know that there are a ton of short-term issues from the impact of a sudden closure on feed suppliers and the processors. An operation the size of Big sky would employ a couple of thousand workers in the processing sector.
The hog sector has had the snot kicked out of it largely from various government meddling - from price supports to chinese hog farmers to subsidies for ethanol production to country of origin labelling to a freeze on herd expansion in much of manitoba.
Now I'm the last person who favours government-run operations, but there has been a lot of chaos caused by non-market forces and this short-term and very expedient step may - and i stress MAY - have merit.
Lots of hog production is fleeing MB to SK and AB and there has been a huge drop on overall production due to the worst prices in living memory last year BTW. Hopefully with the recent strengthening in prices the new SK gov't can divest itself of Big Sky.
Gord, can't agree with you.
Bottom line, maintaining employment in failing industries is always justification government uses to intervene, and voters support. Save the downstream private suppliers blah blah.
Result is always the same. Capitalist success to Welfare state sclerosis.
Die Big Sky. Quickly. As you say, non-Market forces likely created it.
Sadly, non-market forces need to kill it which means it will likely never happen. Neither the politicians involved nor the general public who vote for them will fall for spearing the feed suppliers, the processors and the 1000's of employees whether they be highly paid job-for-life government pig farmers or businesses that taxpayers essentially support.
To paraphrase Ronald Reagan: a Crown Corporation is the nearest thing to eternal life we'll ever see on this earth!
Also by RR:
"Government does not solve problems; it subsidizes them."
The very reason you quote, chaos caused by non-market forces is your best argument for its demise.
Other than that, I always enjoy your posts.
sarge here Yaaaaaaaawn
sarge here Yaaaaaaaawn
Heh.Once a socialist province,always a socialist province.Brad Wall,a pig in a poke.
Disgusting. This habit of hiding Crown Corp losses goes back to the Tommy Douglas CCF days when they would have the government insure every single building they had with SGIO rather than self insure like every other Government in the Western World.
When it's all said and done the Sask government will probably end up selling the 70% share of the multi-million dollar operation that it owns,to the 30% minority private owner for a lousy $1.
Talk about porkulous packages. As stated in the article, goverment employees cannot run a business. There is not enough processing capacity in Sask. to handle the full crop of hogs. Apparently these piglets are not finished there but are exported to finishing operations, a lot of them in the states. This kind of socialist unbalancing of the apple cart just angers (justifiably) everyone. With the Country Of Origin Labeling now in effect in America there might not even be a market for weaner pigs there. Protectionism is on the march across the world, the only way to get ahead of it is to offer superior products. Perhaps this COOL could be turned to Canada's advantage as a world supplier of safe and excellant food products.
Brad Wall seems to have caught the borrow/spend/subsidize bug that has infected Stephen Harper as of late. Hopefully Brad can shake it off before too long. Unfortunately, the disease appears to be terminal in Harper's case.
I wonder who owns the other 30% of Big Sky and benefits from subsidies and this bailout. The pork business is a disaster these days, with even U. S. industry leader Smithfield Foods losing money.
American producers could demand a countervailing duty against imports from Canada, based on government subsidies and the sale of pigs below the cost of production.
"It is probably the largest government owned hog farm in the world now that free enterprise has been adapted by former communist countries"
I would argue that the former communist superpowers have embraced "free enterprise" per se...what they have is a sort of fascist corporatism...a far cry from unregulated free access markets. Poland, Ukraine and Czechoslovakia are fare ahead of Russia and China in free market systems.
Just the same, this State owned pork co-op makes Sask look like a 3rd world backwater.
The Sask government owns a pig farm? How ridiculous is that?? WTF?
soccermom, just think about it for a second. It makes pork barrelling a whole lot easier.
I know, bear, but this sounds like something out of Soviet-era Russia, for crying out loud! Sheeeesh.
So the Provincial Gov't is going to pay a $1 mil subsidy to itself?
The Krauts have the perfect word for this behaviour:
"Schweinerei"! or "swinishness"
Cheers
Hans-Christian Georg Rupprecht, Commander in Chief
1st Saint Nicolaas Army
Army Group "True North"
[quote]Disgusting. This habit of hiding Crown Corp losses goes back to the Tommy Douglas CCF days when they would have the government insure every single building they had with SGIO rather than self insure like every other Government in the Western World.[/quote]
Trent,
The Big Dog does "not" need to pay the little dog for financial protection (self insured). If this simple business practice was well understood we would quickly recognize that those that are paying unnecessary fees & out sourcing services are in fact engaging in Corporate/Government fraud ... RCMP pensions/Unions/GM etc. All use the practice for money laundering of political payoffs, etc.
Hey, is this pork pork?
"The Sask government owns a pig farm? How ridiculous is that?? WTF?"
This ranks right up there with the previous Sask. government owning a wildly unsuccessful potato farming enterprise. Of course, such stupidity was expected of the NDP so it didn't cause much of a furor.
This endeavour, however, is much different since the Sask. Party, up to this point, has behaved responsibly with taxpayers' money.
We're from the gubmint.
We're here to muddy the sits-a-shun.
And to confuse you with the facts.
Actually this ranks right up there with - How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?
When is a govt subsidy not a govt subsidy?
I hate pork stories. I find them so "boaring!"
Hey, take it easy Jack, have another glass of the house swine...
I presume the Sask Party government inherited this mess from their NDP predecessors? Socialism, once begun, is hard to undo overnight. B.C. is still stuck with ICBC, you will remember.
The pigs run the farm, just like the book.
Big Pork getting subsidies? This stuff is writing itself. Where is Comrade Layton when you need him to raise a ruckus in the HoC?
First, Big Sky was and is a commie (NDP) creation, one of thier great "diversity" initiatives, remember SpudCo? Shovel, funnel, redirect, allocate, sucker local investors farmers, cook the books, pay admin big $$. It's all about the "managed economy" model, we know what's best for you.
Long and short, many hog ops toast, market does rule, and unfortunately, in the plethoria of "inherited" ventures and crown etc involved business ventures, just one more loser to deal with. Unfortunate, but not of thier doing.
On the program front, the incentive is minor compared to Alta etc initiatives, and unfortunately Big Sky does qualify. To many many smaller hog and cattle operators, it is at least "something".
Manitoba is a train wreck, Alta and Sask at least have some promise. I'm thankful it's at least capped, under the NDP, Big Sky would have got the lions share (or an amount equal to or greater; under the table?).
Big Sky etal has sunk and lost many $$ dollars, and Gov't shouldn't be in the private enterprise game (or sucker investors so as to skin them), BUT, in time, maybe soon, I'll be surprised if current gov't of Sask doesn't retreat from the minefield the commies built.
It's a time of change in the resource province (no longer wheat), and in short term they've been in power, more positive change than in the last 25 yrs.
Here's to them, it's a far cry from what was there a short time ago!!
It's amazing how fast a cap of $2 million per operation can be instituted when the fingers are caught in the cookie jar, eh?
Sounds like our health care premium scam. They just took the money from healthcare than diverted the payments double into blue cross payers. They figure the lower middle class on, with small buisness should pay it all. Including employee's who had no benifits. As usual ,Indians, Homeless & the poor (rightly here) who never have paied got nothing back. Including us all. We just got a bigger tax disguised as a tax break. Ralph would never have done this . Why? Because he listened to the same idiots once who did this type of stunt & was burned.
This is just another bait & switch manover.
JMO
richfisher LOL
Heartland Livestock (HOGS) a division of Saskatchewan Wheat Pool.
Losses mounting
Sold Off
Farmers Pay
How many divisions ( farms) does big sky have? Hytek in Manitoba has several to get around program caps.
Taxpayers Spammed again.
I always knew Saskatchewan is home to socialist swine...now we have the proof! It would seem as if the socialists have overwhelmed both sides of the Saskatchewan Legislature...