You could have sold all of your crop on the worst day for the worst price in the open market and still done as good a job as the wheat board. Better actually because you would have had all of your money already last fall, with the board you’ll get it sometime after next Christmas.
Speaking of which…
Prior to the last federal election, some of us wanted to demonstrate to get the federal government to support the Risk Management Program. But the Grain and Oilseeds Safety net committee asked us to stand down because they were paying a lot of money to the Daisy Group, a lobby outfit run by hard core Liberal Warren Kinsella. So far, the Daisies got us nothing, which is understandable. Who in their right mind hires a Liberal strategist to lobby a Conservative government? Now the Daisies tell us if farmers don’t do their job lobbying nothing will happen.
The first thing that the Clown Party of Canada would propose would be to present a bill DEMANDING that ALL farmers in Canada fall under the Canadian Wheat Board rules.
I know with Ontario and Quebec forced under such a system, the CWB would be abolished within two weeks. This would be the only way to bring out the dictatorship of the CWB to the public. The Conservatives seemed to drop the ball on this and the LIEberals, under Biffy, demand to keep the Western Farmers under government control for not voting for them.
This is just like the religion of Global Warming/Climate Change [we have four climate changes in most of Canada: Winter, Spring Summer/construction and Fall.], once the truth is out the people will demand change. It is one thing to fight pollution, yet the “carbon” non-problem is just a cash cow for Gore and the enviroMENTALists.
Despite various attempts by Harpo and his regime to dismantle the CWB, when left to the voting farmers, delegates who support the CWB are always elected. That should speak volumes. It is the minority of squeaky wheels and a clown of an agriculture minister Ritz that have tried and failed to undermine the CWB. Only fools think they could do a better job over the long run of market fluctuations of selling their own grain.
So how are you fools in Ontario, BC and Quebec doing selling your own grain?
T — what line of work are you in? What if I told you that your coworkers voted, and now you’re forced to work for the same company for the rest of your life. Oh, and by the way, you have no say in what your paycheck will be from now until retirement.
Fair is fair.
Larry, you’re too smart to be dragged down to T’s level. He/it is a partisan talking point bot who doesn’t have the faintest idea about farm inputs, or the market economy in general.
CWB?
what does the Canadian Welding Bureau
http://www.cwbweb.org/tal/19341838472173488033.asp
have to do with agricultural commodity prices?
LOL !!!
It appears that Ontario wheat producers have a problem with daisy sprouting up in their wheat crop. I’m not talking about the weed either.
The following is a letter written by John VanderSpank to a rural Eastern Ontario paper called “Farmers Forum” and explains what is happening:
Where have all the leaders gone?
By John Vanderspank
Lanark County crop farmer
I’m fed up with farm leadership. Or the absence of it.
You don’t have to be the sharpest knife in the drawer to figure out that the Ontario Federation of Agriculture has lost its way and the new Memorandum of Understanding is more proof of the pudding. The MOU, which slipped through the annual convention last year, basically orders the counties to clam up and speak the party line. In most cases, the county groups are like lambs to slaughter and they’ll do whatever they’re told. But Lanark and Prescott-Russell haven’t signed the MOU and shouldn’t. The MOU is the makings of a top-down organization but it should be the other way around. The OFA was and is supposed to be bottom-up. They tell us it is to make us more like the UPA in Quebec, which is great, but I can’t see our leadership standing up like Laurent Pellerin of Quebec’s lobby group. When Pellerin says, “let’s go on strike, they go on strike.”
We need fresh ideas from the grassroots, not head office putting the thumb on us all the time. Farmers who have to eat all of this awful legislation coming at us should lead the way and the OFA should serve our needs. But that doesn’t happen, even though we’re paying them.
For instance, the OFA said prime agricultural land shouldn’t be used for solar farms. But that’s what is going to happen east of Ottawa, near St. Eugene. The OFA is not backing those farmers fighting the solar proposal. They’re using excuses like this is a municipal issue and we can’t get involved. They’re starting to sound like bureaucrats. They use the ‘can’t’ word, left, right and centre. Every second word out of OFA now is ‘can’t’ when it comes to actually helping someone.
The toughest stand the OFA takes today is writing a letter. Look at the provincial cosmetic pesticide ban. What did the OFA do? They wrote a so-called tough-worded letter. And when it is ignored what will the OFA do? Nothing. And that’s the problem. Governments have to realize there is a downside to not paying attention to farmers. We’ve got the population on our side. We can demonstrate. We can close highways. We can close down food terminals. And we’ve done that. But it was a grassroots movement of farmers that did that, not the OFA. I was waiting five or six years to get the OFA to deal with the Ministry of Natural Resources on getting hunting tags to go after nuisance deer eating my crops. The OFA would still be working on it if a group of grassroots farmers hadn’t stepped in. On two separate days we barricaded the doors to the Kemptville office of the Ministry of Natural Resources and we held two well-publicized “illegal” Father’s Day hunting parties on my farm. Mind you, it was stressful when the MNR came after me in a helicopter and a swat team with dogs and hauled me in to court. But now, I get hunting tags whenever I want them. The MNR is only too happy to give them to me. We got hunting tags for all farmers. I didn’t just do it for me.
When teachers want more money, they go on strike and they get what they want. Farm leaders have to be willing to do what it takes to get the job done. Former OFA president, Geri Kamenz, was willing to work with grassroots farmers. He wasn’t afraid to use us as a hammer. But for the most part, farm leadership is like a big, bulky ship, slow to change direction. Meantime, agriculture’s problem will only get worse because the farming community is getting smaller, farms are getting bigger and farmers are getting busier.
Leadership is lacking with the commodity boards too. I’m on the wheat board. So, when I want to fix a problem we go in to this in-camera meeting to discuss it and I find out they don’t want to fix the problem. They want to fix the person. Prior to the last federal election, some of us wanted to demonstrate to get the federal government to support the Risk Management Program. But the Grain and Oilseeds Safety net committee asked us to stand down because they were paying a lot of money to the Daisy Group, a lobby outfit run by hard core Liberal Warren Kinsella. So far, the Daisies got us nothing, which is understandable. Who in their right mind hires a Liberal strategist to lobby a Conservative government? Now the Daisies tell us if farmers don’t do their job lobbying nothing will happen.
To be fair, the commodity boards do excellent crop research and market development and deserve credit for it. But when it comes to politics, wrong-headed lobby groups and timid letter writers don’t cut it. The short-term answer is that any farmer willing to stick his neck out, can get a lot more done working without the boards and lobby groups. I can get a lot more done talking to the politicians directly and talking to a small group of grassroots farmers willing to make a lot of noise. If we need to, we’ll call around and get the tractors back on the road. The politicians know we can do it, although I have to admit I’m sick of rallying and it’s expensive.
In the long-term, it will take the blood of visionaries, new and true leaders, willing to sacrifice those invites to posh political wine and cheese galas and perhaps, sacrifice their reputations in some circles, to go the distance. That spirit of sacrifice is sorrowfully lacking in agriculture today. But sacrifice is true service and that’s what’s needed when you need to git ‘r done.
CWB = Can’t Work Because?????
The wheat board was invented by the war time government to prevent the west from getting rich and prosperous during WWII. The bigshots in the East did not like private individuals in the west growing ‘too big for their britches’ and the msm co-operated by insinuating that westerners were ‘hayseeds’ and should not be trusted with power. The ‘hayseeds’ were almost all immigrants from the east! Gerry Ritz is not fighting western farmers (except the big commune type farmers like the Hutterites and the NDP creations in Manitoba and Sask.), he is fighting the eastern businesses who sell their produce on the open market and buy cheap CWB produce for their own use. The west has been ‘used’ for years and tolerated it – this is the fault of the western farmers, they would not be used as a doormats if they did not lie down.
so Daisy is in on this gravy train ? – so this is how and why they fund their non stop conservative ass-kicking – what’s next – we’ll find metcalfe’s capital hill group being funded ? – this must be exposed
It makes no difference what price the CWB gets for wheat, nor how many farmers support the CWB. Forcing farmers to sell their produce to the CWB is a violation of individual liberty that should not be tolerated in a free country.
Why not get the GG to drive a truck of grain across the border…She could give Harper lessons on what CANADIAN leadership takes…………..true grit!
Tar Babies, Tar Sands, Tar.. Tar…. The Tar Baby term goes back (at least) to the ROYAL NAVY…… the very reason the Navy salutes with the palm inward… to hid the evidence of hard work… so bad, so bad…..
Petty, Stupid, Putrid, cheap shot Socialists
I’m just amazed at the dimwit Liberals who just don’t get it. Just WHO’S Godammed wheat IS IT? The Liberal Party of Canada is the Party that should be fighting to get rid of this tyrannical monopoly if they believed in any of their dogma. Isn’t this the Party who is supposed to be the stalwart DEFENDER of the COMMON MAN? Aren’t they supposed to be the last refuge of LIBERTY for all?
“The theory of Communism may be summed up in one sentence: Abolish all private property.”
Karl Marx
If fixing the EI system so the ENTIRE COUNTRY has the same system is a matter of national unity then surely abolishing or extending the wheat board to include everyone is also a matter of national unity?? The Liberals should rush to Western Canada’s aide in 5… 4… 3…. (yeah right).
I farmed for over 40 years and bypassed the CWB by marketing my grain as a pedigreed seed grower.Early on I recognized what was happening.Control, not results was in the minds of the CWB supporters.The clossets I can equate it to was the famine in the Ukraine caused by the Communists.They cared not a whit for the starving but had control of the population.Before you supporters spout off,remember the rinks full of unsold grain in the fifties and the four bushel quotas in the seventies.
The CWB: Librano poker chip in the great game of negotiating personal wealth without anybody seeing how you did it. A dedicated source of cheap grain with which to barter – how nice.
Anybody remember the shipload of rotten wheat that went to Iraq during Oil For Food?
Libranos will render their mothers down to tallow for a buck.
Re: “when left to the voting farmers, delegates who support the CWB are always elected”
The elections are generally pretty close. But the problem is that they are voting on something that should not be up for election in the first place. Farmers should no more have a say on how other farmers market their grain than on whether other farmers eat Corn Flakes or Rice Krispies for breakfast.
Re: “Control, not results was in the minds of the CWB supporters”
That’s the way it always is with government bureaucracies. Same thing with the health care system, for example.
Well, this is an issue that has more sides than a Lieberal policy convention!
Speaking as a primary producer in western Canada,(and an avowed big C conservative) we’ve had more rhetoric/lies/falsehoods/mis-statements of facts/political opportunism/special interest group incursion/Board activism/Ministerial interference/rightwing(leftwing)claptrap directed to this debate than Iggy’s eyebrows.
There’s an impression among the uninformed that a producer cannot sell his wheat and barley production except thru the Board- that is false. Last week I moved thousands of bushels of barley to a nearby cattle feedlot at a price above the current open market AND the CWB asking price. But I’ve also seen the case where in a supply glut, you can hardly give the stuff away, and save for the Board, their sales network can ferret out a return not available elsewhere.
Mr. Weber and other commodity brokers can easily find a home for individual cargo lots, but when faced with finding a home for the huge volumes handled by the CWB and their network of sales agents and contacts, I wonder how well they would do? and to what benefit to the producer??
Don’t get me wrong. I have serious questions with the powers of the CWB. But I also question the antics of Minister Ritz with his ‘bull in the chinashop’ approach. Afterall, the issue has been placed before producers many times, and on balance, they’ve let it be known that they felt the Board was a better option.
And let me tell you again, ‘I’m no socialist!’
The director elections are a complete joke. 18000 farmers deliver 80% of the grain yet they mail out 62000 ballots. To many dead people voting in those elections. Even former chairman Ritter said that the CWB’s own polling showed that a majority of farmers wanted a voluntary CWB. I am encouraged to see that some of the directors are starting to talk about making the voters list more representitive of the farmers that actually grow the grain.
Still can’t get it thru your head, eh Snagglepuss?
What I grow, or don’t grow, on my farm is none of your business or any else’s business.
There is only one right side to this issue of western grain producers and that is they deserve to treated like any other business that produces a legal product.
They need the freedom to be able to sell it, when they want, to whoever wants to pay them what they consider a reasonable price for it.
Growing and selling grain is the world’s secondest oldest profession and it is pure bullspit that the CWB does a better job of selling grain than anyone else can.
I’m sure even you know that ‘maximizing returns to the producer’ is NOT the primary mandate of the CWB and they even refused to put it writing to make it their mandate.
The CWB sells grain by political choice.
Always have and always will, as long as it remains a creation of the federal govt.
The CWB has given away more of Western Canada’s wealth than the National Energy Program ever thought of taking out of Western Canada because the CWB has been doing it since 1946.
And as Rolf has just pointed out, the CWB just added to its disgusting legacy again last year.
Regarding CWB elections: it isn’t about convincing your neighbours that they would get more for their grain with marketing choice, but rather, they should give up their control over how you sell your grain.
If and when marketing choice directors win the elections, it only means the end of the big lie that farmers control the CWB.
The CWB Act allows the Conservative Government to order the Winnipeg bureaucrats to issue export licences to prairie farmers. This is all that eastern farmers have ever had. Why is it not good enough for us?
The only way we will get change is to start with-holding our donations to the conservative party and tell them no more money until they get a bill before parliament to get rid of the boards monopoly. When their funding begins to dry up action will be taken for sure. I sent my letter off to my MP last week telling him no more cash until action was taken on this file.
We should ask for what the Conservatives can actually do. The Act puts them in charge of export licences. A bill before this minority Parliament is just more of the same. Like throwing stones into water – a big impressive splash, but we need a quiet drain.
Doug – The Conservatives have a MINORITY gov’t and on the CWB , the coalition of traitors (Dippers/Puffins/Blocheads) ALWAYS all vote to maintain the CWB because all the coalition members represent ridings in the east/north or w coast loonies – no backlash from those self centered voters. Watch the House of Commons on CPAC instead of listening to the Canadian msm, for Pete’s sake! The CWB is, of course, only an institution for the wealth control of Western farmers.
Something else that I know (from being a Western farmer’s kid), there is also a grading issue at the elevators (probably behind some W. farmers supporting the CWB)- all grain is sold from the elevators in lumps, by grade. An elevator operator can put any grade he wants on grain deliveries, and then, possibly, shuffle around the deliveries to justify his/her shipments. For instance; if the operator likes you he can put ‘grade A’ on your ‘Grade C’ grain; then when a person the operator does not like brings in ‘Grade A’ grain, the operator can stamp that delivery ‘grade C’ he then can exchanges the deliveries in the appropriate bins, no one would know the difference because individual diliveries are not shipped under the original names or intact.
There is plenty of room for graft and corruption – I am not accusing any individuals …I’m just saying…
snagglepuss;If you went to a number of dealers to get a quote on the price of a new piece of equipment,when was the last time that YOU purchased that piece of equipment from the dealer that quoted YOU the highest price?It doesnt happen in the grain trade either.
“Mr. Weber and other commodity brokers can easily find a home for individual cargo lots”
Not me – havent brokered grain since 2005 – tired of the left wing whacks suggesting change I was promoting was strictly self-servicing.
Snag:
You have no idea how much this institution is costing you, do you?
Here is a taste from an email I sent to Ritz 10 days ago:
From: Larry Weber [mailto:larry@webercommodities.com]
Sent: Friday, May 22, 2009 12:09 PM
To: Gerry.Ritz2@agr.gc.ca‘
Subject: so if CWB can advise anyone who has a $5500 Reuters terminal what they are doing – why cant they tell farmers?
****ing board – everyday I need to pop a nitro because they are so inept – every friggin day – millions and millions of our farmers equity GIVEN away to foreign countries – when does it stop??????????????????????????
Keep farmers in the dark but tell the trade everything – pathetic –
controlled by left wing whack farmers s/b the motto
what are the parameters for provincial trade barriers to make this happen?
12:23 22May09 RTRS-CANADA WHEAT BOARD CEO SAYS SOLD 150,000 TONNES OF SPRING WHEAT TO IRAQ LAST WEEK
12:24 22May09 RTRS-CANADA WHEAT BOARD CEO SAYS WOULD SUPPORT GM WHEAT IF EXPORT MARKETS WOULD ACCEPT
12:24 22May09 RTRS-CANADA WHEAT BOARD CEO SAYS WHEAT PLANTINGS LIKELY “SLIGHTLY LOWER” THAN STATSCAN ESTIMATE OF 25.2 MLN ACRES
12:24 22May09 RTRS-CANADA WHEAT BOARD CEO SAYS WILL ACCEPT ALL WHEAT PRODUCED THIS YEAR, WITH SMALL CARRYOUT
12:26 22May09 RTRS-CANADA WHEAT BOARD CEO SAYS WHEAT PRICES GOOD BUT WON’T LIKELY REACH RECORD HIGHS THIS YEAR
12:40 22May09 RTRS-Canada sells 150,000 tonnes wheat to Iraq -CWB
SASKATOON, Saskatchewan, May 22 (Reuters) – The Canadian Wheat Board sold 150,000 tonnes of spring wheat to Iraq last week, the CWB’s president and chief executive said on Friday.
“That’s not unusual. Iraq will generally purchase when they go to tender in the range of 100,000 to 300,000 tonnes,” Ian White said in an interview with Reuters. “Sales to Iraq in this last 12 months have been quite good.”
White also said Canadian wheat and barley exports in general are in line with expectations and that he expects “minimal” carryover into next year.
He predicts Canadian farmers will plant a “slightly lower” all-wheat acreage than the estimate of 25.2 million acres given by Statistics Canada earlier this spring.
____________________________________________
The only premium the CWB extracts is the one the take from farmer’s cheques to pay themselves bonuses.
We need to tell Minister Ritz how to solve the CWB abomination. Those getting export licences are out of the monopoly. Ritz is also the Minister of Agriculture. Farmer’s grain is agriculture and Ritz has a duty to not let Winnipeg bureacrats, under trade and commerce, confiscate our grain by arbitrary denial of licences based on province. The solution is an order by the Government – it doesn’t have to go through Parliament.
Surely we don’t want to spend ten more years identifying the problem.
I will say again, when left to the voting farmers more often than not the candidates that support single desk marketing, (i.e. CWB) are elected; that should tell the government something. Moreover, Ritz and his cronies have tried every trick in the book to undermine the CWB to no avail, even a Federal Court decision went aginst the government. I know of many farmers including the one who rents my land that strongly support the CWB. This guy is farmers close to 13000 acres and voted for the candidate that supported the CWB.
Probably the fairest election on the subject of the cwb was held a couple of years back when the majority voted in favor of dual marketing.
What did the opposition do.
They went straight to the court to have the decison blocked.
What utter BS is that!
On my farm all i can say is, thank God the cwb doesn’t market my flax, canola, canary etc. or i’d have guite farming a long time ago.
Do you think anyone at the cwb is concerned about getting top dollar for our product?
The only thing they care about is their next pay cheque!
As Rolf points out…the cwb blew it again didn’t they!
Time this albetros went the way of the doe doe bird! and the sooner the better!!