I can only wish Jerry well. I hope he can continue with the "common sense" approach and do what is right for agriculture. Keeping the farmers/ranchers happy will be no easy feat and let's face it, if they go hungry, ... we ALL go hungry!

go Gerry go . . . nail the bastards.

An anti monopolist as AG minister...refreshing....let's see if it translates into any substantive change.

I'd bet we can count on a strong performance from Gerry Ritz and he's one hell of a communicator to boot.

Once again Jack Layton & his Crystal ball say's "Not the kind of change Canadians were looking for".
Of course layton is refering to the cabinet shuffle, So once again Jack has stated that he knows what we are thinking. Unfortantly for jack he was not able to read my mind, & that is not what iam thinking of him this very moment.(One word begins with A ends with E, or is it 2)
Viewed on CanadaAm can be seen at CTV.ca

Hopefully he can kill off the CWB now and get rid of welfare programs for farmers.

Listening to CBC Radio this am, they stated that 2/3 of Sask farmers do not want the end of the CWB. To the uninformed (99.9% of a typical CBC audiance) that would mean approx 80% of Sask farmers want the CWB to stay as is. Now if you look at the facts:
CWB Permit holders (MB, SK, AB, Peace River area of BC)
Barley Plebiscite Results
Retain single desk 37.8%
CWB loses monopoly, farmers can sell to other buyer 48.4%
No CWB role in marketing barley 13.8%

Single Desk
Manitoba 51%
Saskatchewan 45%
Alberta 21%

Dual Marketing
Manitoba 34.6%
Saskatchewan 42%
Alberta 63%

No CWB involvement:
Manitoba 14.4%
Sask 13%
Alberta 16%
Source: Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada

But the biggest stat that nobody talks about is the number of people who actually voted:
Of the roughly 80,000 ballots sent out, 29,067 were returned. That includes 15,327 votes from Saskatchewan, 9,881 in Alberta, 3,703 in Manitoba and 156 in B.C.

So only 36% of eligable farmers voted, therefore 64% of Western Canadian farmers are either dead or indifferent to the Wheat Board. I wonder why the CWB, NFU, LPC and the NDP have not mentioned this in their propaganda?

I see today that the CWB is now into weather forecasting. I had this strange idea that they were supposed to be selling grain; bet farmers are glad that that's coming out of their cheques.

Could be the ones voting actually use the CWB as a marketing tool (pity the fools)

The other 64% may be marketing crops other than barley/wheat, i.e. for feed, canola, pulse, etc.

This is definitely the job for a man like Gerry Ritz. He talks fast, thinks on his feet, has a droll sense of humour, does not suffer fools and puffed up beaurocrates or crooks; we can look forward to honesty, integrity and action from this new minister of Agriculture, IMO. Gerry is a farmer himself so he knows his way around that business and he speaks the language.

I can hardly wait for him to crack open those books at the CWB. It will be soooo much fun to watch the crooks in that outfit squirm.

Hey everybody get over to CalgaryGrits blog, the voting between Grant Devine and Ernest Manning has just began.

Hey, Gerry will sort old Wayne Easter the Shouter out on the subject of the Wheat Board, Wayner's from PEI, the Liberal expert on the subject.
Gerry should have him shouting get me out of the wheat field I'm going against the grain in short order.

test

If they get rid of the wheat board it's gone. No choosing. You either do or don't. No double dipping. And don't ask the gov't to bail you out when prices are low.