From the comments;
CPAC is right this moment carrying the [Canadian Wheat Board] debate in The House on this subject.
In fact Carol Skelton,MP from Saskatchewan suggested that the opposition members go to Small Dead Animals blog and search out the comments.
She made special mention of Larry Webber[sic].
For ease of navigation, click here for a direct link to that discussion.
While you’re here, I recommend you read this one as well, regarding a CWB statement before the Federal court that “the Board is accountable only to Parliament”.
Barcs:
Your responses to this post and other posts about the CWB have been respectful,topical and well reasoned. I totally dissagree with them but you are obviously a reasonable person. How then, can you demand that I sell MY crop to anyone but whom I choose. You have no right to do this. Neither does any marketing group. Even you state that you don’t think the pricing would change much in a free market. You speak of ideologies clouding the view of CWB opponents. I suggest that it is you that is blinded by ideology. I live in a free country.(I hope) I demand the freedom to freely market my product.
“How then, can you demand that I sell MY crop to anyone but whom I choose.”
That is among the (few) present arguments here that hold water. And one I happen to agree with.
However I also sometimes am forced to conclude that collectiveness is sometimes important to the benefit the group. (Vulcan Philosophy – the needs of the many and all that). In this group I grudgingly place things like welfare, Healthcare, Education, foreign and domestic aid, etc.
I am still on the fence as to whether the CWB (benefits) fit into such a category or not.
**– Placing anything in such a group obviously has its drawbacks. One of which is your argument for property rights. (Which are not enshrined in the constitution. Isn’t such a change in the CPC platform)
So failing a decision on the morality of whether the CWB should be in that group or not I am left to argue my position only from whether or not I can see benefits in either situation.
In this country there are many marketing boards.If a farmer wants to market his produce,they have to buy quota as these boards get more than world price for products.In Ontario it ranges between$30 and $40,ooo per cow.The quotas that prairie farmers have to abide by are worth zip,nada,nil or any other word that represents nothing.In fact these same quotas have forced thousands of farmers off the land because of no cash flow.The CWB prohibits the growing of high yielding wheat because of no reason other than that they do.MR.RITTER;TEAR DOWN THAT WALL !
Market Place Discipline, Marketing Power, Fee Schedule, Industry Association, .. whatever you want to call it.
How sucessful with haggling are we with;
Dentists
Chemical Companies
Lawyers
Fert cos
Pharmacies
Rail cos
Surgeons
Milk
Turkeys (human kind also)
Fuel
Do I agree with “putting-on-the-squeeze” ?? not really. But if one wants to make $$$, best to be in the low # of sellers group.
Is it possible for thousands and thousands of G & O seed Farmers to exhibit market discipline ?? Never. Is your product the most esential item to Mankind ?? Absolutely. Nothing trumps it, not even health care.
That is why govmits of the world will never leave food production entirely to the market place. Even the USofA has the USDA, the biggest Bear in the market.
The CWB “could” have discipline, “if” it wanted to, and “if” the politicians ok-ed it, and “if” the citizens wanted higher food prices.
Otherwise, build lotsa bins and don’t disclose your inventory #s.
And here I thought collectivism died with Stalin.
“I just wish one of you farmers would take this up as a human rights abuse/ charter challenge. This is an abuse of your human rights when a quebec or ontario farmer doesn’t have to sell to the wheat board but prarie farmers do.”
This is the mute point; whose wheat/barley is it anyway?
1. If Farmers want to market under a marketing agency that speaks for all there is nothing stopping them; but it should be a voluntary membership in an agency accountable to said members.
2. The continuation of the CWB as it stands is really a threat to all Canadians. This is a basic Property Rights violation and sets a precidence. I believe the Supreme Court can rule in favor of the Government on similar matters of property rights because there was no objection in this case. This goes back to an Ontario case if Impared Driving and a wrongful search (road block). The Justices ruled the Rights violation OK due to lack of previous objections. The people had given permission in absentia.
Universal Declaration of Human Rights
Article 17.
(1) Everyone has the right to own property alone as well as in association with others.
(2) No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property.
I believe Canada is a signor of this declaration?
I did not see much of the debate about the motion the bouncing bunny easter put forward Tue. because I had to work but I did see Mr. David Anderson, MP for your riding Barc, the Beautiful Cypress Hills; give one of the best speeches I have ever heard on the topic. In his speech Mr. Anderson ripped the hysterical, high pitched, PEI guy and his Liberano$/Dipper defenders of the CWB to the quick. He had the bunny carrying on like the battery charged Everready bunny that keeps on going and going and going….it was really funny to see the spud bunny sputtering and spinning in place.
If any farmers here ever doubted that the Liberano$/Dippers had respect or concern for their interests they certainly got their answer today. The Dipper/Liberano$ voted with the separatista outfit (Bloc) to keep you as ‘state slaves’.
I commend Mrs. Skelton for reading your Blog Kate and I commend you for it’s (sda)excellence. “The pulse of Canada” – well said and factual. Thank-you once again Kate for all you do for all the rest of us.
I heard, today, that we have a new parliamentary poet; to keep up with the times, may I suggest, Mrs Skelton, that you pass a motion to sponsor a parliamentary blogger and that you nominate Kate at sda for that position? Kate should also get a citizen of the decade award for saving the sanity of hundreds of Canadians. Once the WB books are cracked and they are forced to pay back what they forced farmers to buy into and buy back out of, the government can give Kate funds to keep up her good work of keeping Canadians informed of the real news of the day.
If as some of you say, this cwb is such a great thing for farmers (western farmers) then open the books and lets have a look.
Someone mentioned how the austrailian wb has been implicated in the oil for food scandle and that the farmers in the awb were overcharged to the tune of millions. By what i read the ausie wb is on the way out…no wonder!
Knowing france was tight with saddam, and how cretch was related to desmarias and how desmarias was one of the largest share holders in a french oil company, and as scared as the old guard (liebrals) are to open the books i would say i smell a rat, a big fat liebral mafia rat! They sure enough proved to us they know how to stick their fingers in the till to the tune of billions!
AS for buyers, Where do u suppose the farmers delivered their grain before the cwb came alone? Yes, to the grain company’s. Do you think they are going to stop buying your grain after the wb moves over to give you choice? Do you think the cwb was finding louis dryfus the sales for the wheat they were buying and selling before they had handling facilitys here? They will still be here after, but u will also be able to go looking on your own if you want to.
Some of u are mentioning the forward priceing options the wb gives us as a form of free market. Well if farmer (a) does this and the cwb looses money, who do you think is going to pick up that loss? Let me tell you, it will be the boys in the (cwb pool account b)! and that is already happening.
For my money, i think i’m better off to take a one shot price, like i do for my canola, flax, feed wheat or whatever i’m selling, then if someone down the chain wants to cause a hickup my money is off the table and someone else can pick up the bill. At least i would like the choice!
Thanks as well Kate.
http://www 2.parl.gc .ca/HousePublications/Publication .aspx?Language=E&Mode=1&Parl=39&Ses=1&DocId=2598624
The above is the link to the debate yesterday.
Note: To keep from being trapped in the filter, 3 spaces were created within the address.
Committee minutes can take longer to be posted in Hansard, but will watch for them to be completed ahead, too.
As I understand it Bygeorge. (Larry can please correct me if I am wrong)
The CWB in its pricing options acts much the way any other grain company does to protect themselves from market fluctuations. When you buy a forward contract they offset their position on one of the grain exchanges.
In so doing they reduce risk by guarenteeing both the price they buy and sell at.
Such would also protect sales money in the pool accounts from any market speculation.
Barcs, if farmer(a)forward prices for lets say 4 dollars a bushel. Hauls said grain to the elevator and their is a strike that causes demurage charges to be leveled at said grain…..who is going to pick up that cost? I say, the boys in pool account b. I would much prefer to take a one shot deal and get my money off the table.
Thanks buffalo bean. I will miss the hyper drama (the battery bunny) but it will be great to read the whole thing. I will be looking for your comitee postings. Thank-you again. BTW will you post the addresses here at sda?
That is correct.
Try to be consistent in your argument please. Forward contracting has nothing to do with demurrage.
Barc:
The CWB in its pricing options acts much the way any other grain company does to protect themselves from market fluctuations. When you buy a forward contract they offset their position on one of the grain exchanges.
An offset is completing on one of three exchanges – you are correct on the PURCHASE but not the sale. The CWB could sit on the wheat for 9 months before selling it. The do not hedge sales until sales are made or it would be speculating. They do not hedge FOREX until sales are made or it is speculating. (sore point for me)
In so doing they reduce risk by guarenteeing both the price they buy and sell at.
Sell….see above. They are still at FOREX and futures risk until the grain is sold.
Such would also protect sales money in the pool accounts from any market speculation.
Pricing options:
Contentious issue with those who use them and the basis levels. The CWB is accused of building the contingency fund on the backs of farmers who use the pricing tools. I can argue both sides of this one.
Best,
LW
Conspiracy theory from a farmer( or two )I know…
Cargil controls Potash
Cargil controls Transport
Cargil controls buying
Cargil controls market
Western Canadian farmers who have been attacking CWB have made deals with Cargil!
Is Cargil behind the Anti- CWB hysteria??
CBC ‘At Issue’ media panel tonight was shown a photo of a lady known to us.
None of them, Chantal Hebert, Rob Russo, Andrew Coyne, Rex Murphy, knew who she was.
Peter M. admitted he had to look again at his notes, to provide her name….Hon. Carol Skelton, Saskatchewan MP, Minister of National Revenue and the Minister of Western Economic Diversification.
The theme of the short jab was that since she was so unknown, not much could be happening in regard to Western Diversification. Or that she was of some less consequence perhaps.
Interesting, in that farmers out West have had some ideas of their own about what they could do if they could market their own product….diversify, in other words.
Or, perhaps, the CBC caught Skelton’s mention of alternate opinions coming from other sources than MSM;)
Hopefully, Western Diversification, as a function of the various governments working together with vigor, will show its best side after the break…
But, for not knowing who she was, they might feel some measure of embarrassment, for isn’t that their job to know?
How much time do they really spend watching debates, other than Question Period?