Where will Liberal-friendly journalists go to retire?

Like the man on trial for murdering his parents, who asks the judge for mercy because he is an orphan.

What have been referred to a “The Worst Labour Laws in Canada” and “An Assault on Worker’s Rights” and “Anti-Woman“, Bills 5 (The Essential Services Act) & 6 (Amendments to the Trade Union Act) are about to be passed by the newly elected Saskatchewan Party government.
As a result, The Saskatchewan Federation of Labour called for a May Day rally today that was held in Regina at the Saskatchewan Legislature and at the Saskatoon Cabinet office. This was a supposed to be a “Celebration of Activism and Resistance” as well as a strong message to the Sask Party government that these bills would be fought to the bitter end.
Considering these bills represent the greatest changes to labour legislation in Saskatchewan in a generation, one would have thought tens of thousands of these “activists and resistors” would have shown up.
In Regina the head count was approximately 250 people and in Saskatoon, the lunch hour “activists and resistors” left a grand total of 10 protest signs shoved under the front door.
I suspect that most of the rank and file union members that weren’t in attendance for this rally were those that were actually doing their jobs…. How inconvenient is that for labour leadership in the province?
That’s the problem with protests… Sometimes the number of people that show up to an event tells you more than any placard could.

And there are people out there who want to wreck it.

To thank the one person who, nearly singlehandedly, brought this about;

[Saskatchewan’s] record haul of $265 million from its oil and natural gas land sales in April — the first of the 2008-2009 budget year — is $73.5 million more than the province budgeted for the entire year.
It followed a record sale in February, which bodes well for the five other land sales that will be held this budget year.

Here’s to you, Ed Stelmach!

“Rhymes with.”

While driving home from Minot this morning, there came news of a train derailment south of Weyburn, and that CP Rail had advised that a grass fire was complicating matters.
I took this from the detour route;

Sure, that’s a grass fire…
Ed Minchau, in the comments – “Holy freaking hell. Hans, that’s not just N2O4, it was also NO2. When those two combine with water you’ve basically got Red Fuming Nitric Acid. And N2O4 is one helluva strong oxidizer – Kate, I hope you didn’t get within a mile of that accident, either N2O4 or Red Fuming Nitric Acid are both toxic as hell. It’s the reason that the space shuttle has to sit on the ground for an hour and a half after landing before the astronauts can disembark, as the ground crew has to make sure that none of it is leaking or still present in the maneuvering system nozzles.
Yeah, about a mile. I think that was the evacuation radius they mentioned later in the afternoon, now that I think of it. It was the “grass fire” claim that made me laugh. Anyone within 20 miles knew that weren’t no grass fire.

It’s not just any day that a political party uses caucus funds and the floor of the legislature to attack a private citizen who belongs to no political party at all.
Move over, Rush Limbaugh. They’re making me famous.
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(Upate for John Gormley Live listeners, the original post under discussion is here.)

From a Green Party press release passed along by email;

LA RONGE – Green Party by-election candidate Robin Orr is running in second place among decided voters in Desnethe-Missinippi-Churchill, according to a
phone survey conducted by the Green Party.
[…]
The phone survey was conducted by the Green Party over the weekend of March 8 to 10, 2008. The voice message asked “which political party are you planning to vote for on March 17th”. Of the 237 voters who responded, their voting preferences were:
26.6% Conservative
13.9% Green
13.1% Liberal
11.0% NDP
35.4% Undecided

Small sample size, and who knows who drafted the methodology, but the by-election could prove interesting in this “Liberal held – television raffle won” seat.

A bill to strip the WCB of its barley marketing status will be introduced Monday.

DrD in the comments – “I chose “wit”, because, as it is often said: “A bun is the lowest form of wheat.”. However, I stress that you should not allow this to influence your vote. Decide carefully.
Update: According to 650 CKOM, there was a bit of jostling at the legislature among farmers in attendance. About 80% of those there were lending support to ending the monopoly.
Update 2: Ritz’s statement is up at Agriville

From Rolf Penner;

While every other commodity outside of the wheat boards control can be priced by farmers year round the board only offers basis contracts from now until the end of October. It did offer futures only contracts prior to this but since you couldn’t lock in a basis level you had no idea what your final price would be.
For your readers who have asked this question before – ‘basis’ is the difference between the futures market price and the actual in your pocket cash price and as such is very important. For board grains one also needs to subtract the standard CWB deductions back to their location to get your final price.

So here we are in the hottest wheat market ever and the CWB response is to give producers who want to price their grain into this rally the worst basis they have ever offered. Every other year it started as a positive, this year its a negative $29.10/tonne. And to top it all off this year you have less opportunity than ever to pull the trigger as the board will only be taking orders from 3pm until 9pm, they are no longer taking them in the morning before the market opens.
Its the CWB version of competition and choice, they can’t even successfully compete against themselves and while they talk about offering more choice you actually get less. We need real choice on the prairies and real competition and we need them like Britney Spears needs Fruit of the Loom.

Wheat hits $20 in North Dakota and Minnesota The wheat market moved into historic ground Friday in North Dakota and Minnesota, as short-term demand from mills pushed prices up to $20 a bushel at one elevator in an after-hours scramble. Most elevators in northeast North Dakota and northwest Minnesota posted prices of $16.70 to $17.30 Friday. posted a bid of $18.25 Friday. But the market was much hotter than that. “After the close, we bought 50,000 bushels of wheat at 20 bucks,” Lokken said. “That’s a million dollars worth of wheat.” The AGP Elevator in Valley City, N.D. buyer on the “floor,” in the Minneapolis Grain Exchange told him late Friday, “Just see what it would take to buy X amount of bushels of wheat,” Lokken said. “So, we went to a few guys and asked, what would you sell wheat at? They said 20 bucks. So we said, if we paid you 20 bucks, would you sell? Some of them did. Amazingly, some of them said they wanted 30.” But much of the wheat this year was sold between $5.50 and $7, Lokken and other elevator managers say. Historic highest price of $20 a bushel for spring wheat is a record, by far, in nominal terms. But if the historic highs reached in 1973, after the Soviet Union’s first big forays into the world market, are adjusted for inflation, the $5 per-bushel price would be roughly $22 a bushel in today’s dollars. He doesn’t think the market has hit the top yet. “We will see what happens,” Lokken said. “I bet you that on Monday, we won’t be the only elevator out there bidding $18, $20.” (GRANDFORKSHERALD)

Via Larry Weber who adds, “Better make sure the phone number in your permit book is up to date so that you can refer to this article when your western Canadian marketer rings you up to ask what price you would sell your remaining wheat for. (Just kidding)”
(You can subscribe to his newsletter at the link.)

Courtesy of Rolf Penner:

Many board supporters don’t like spot price comparisons with the pool price, they feel that it is not a fair comparison, while that point is debatable, even when one looks at average prices the board still comes up short year after year. The average of the 8 year average (and if its one thing Canadians love is averages, lets not get to extreme here) is $36.36 per tonne or 79 cents per bushel.

I know they’re new at governing, but I had hoped the days of spending our tax dollars prosecuting “shower curtain” cases were over.

“In the case of a few rich farmers who can sit on all of their grain while the raging masses sell out early perhaps Saskfarmer has a legitimate argument. Perhaps we did cost him $5.00 per bushel on his durum. Perhaps it ran 50 bushels per acre and perhaps he had a thousand acres. And perhaps he could have earned an additional quarter of a million dollars.” – CWB director Rod Flaman

Via Larry Weber;

“Two days after the last CWB PRO – the difference in cash prices in Ontario and the U.S. is over $5.00 AGAIN. 2008 Crop Hard Red Spring wheat with 12.5 protein or better can be booked in Ontario at $10.02 a bushel. How many of you would lock in $10.00 new crop wheat values off the combine if you had the chance?

But wait, folks – that’s not all!
Today’s “independant farmer” spotting, courtesy the Canadian Press:

“Marketing choice or a dual market is there really to end the wheat board,” Butch Harder, a Manitoba farmer, told a news conference.
Ending the board’s control will turn Prairie agriculture over to businesses, he said.
He said a majority of producers support the board, although a government-sponsored plebiscite last year seemed to support the optional-marketing plan.
Harder and others say the plebiscite was a rigged election worthy of “a banana republic.”

Butch Harder is a former CWB director for District 10.
It’s reporting like that which reminds us of the vast gap between professional journalists and “wanna-be” amateurs like ourselves!

MLA Randy Weekes, Delisle mayor Rita Pfoh and the Hon. Carol Skelton after this morning’s announcement of shared federal-provincial infrastructure funding of $175,000 to reroof and upgrade the insulation in the Delisle Arena. It’s one of 56 such projects being announced for the province. (Biggar is their next stop, where they’ll announce funding for the town’s aquatic center.)
The only apparent media on the scene arrived late.
Update – as requested, a photo of the Delisle Centennial Arena.

Courtesy Weber Commodities.
Previous
Update – here’s another…

“We are an organization; we are a team; we are a family; we are a province; we are a nation; we are champions,”

Also: One more story to tell.

Apparently, a change of government brings with it a change in government. Who could have predicted ?

The Saskatchewan Party government is shaking up the civil service this week, giving pink slips to eight deputy ministers.
That’s about half of the deputy ministers in the provincial civil service. Deputy ministers are the senior civil servants in the provincial departments who work closely with the ministers, who are politicians.
After the NDP took power in 1991, many of the deputies received their walking papers.
Now it’s the Saskatchewan Party’s turn to put their stamp on the civil service. One of the changes is to refer to government departments as ministries.
Among those leaving is John Wright, the former president of SaskPower and former finance and health deputy who had been a major part of the public service for decades.

I heard of Wright’s dismissal last night from a private source. He was well liked in the department. However, as not a lot about health service delivery is well liked in the province, it may have something to do with the decision. Old dogs, new tricks and whatnot. But that’s a guess.