Over the past two decades, the number of farmers growing wheat and barley on the Prairies has fallen by over 40% as tens of thousands of producers have stopped growing so-called “board grains” and taken up harvesting other crops so as to escape the board’s control. These former CWB farmers are not polled by the board in its annual survey nor are they eligible to vote in the current plebiscite. And still the CWB cannot find majority support.
(Schadenfreude mine).
Related: “Mr. Herle, taking the CWB’s view as irrefutable fact is not being objective, which is unfortunate for a pollster.”
Ding, dong the Wicked Witch is dead…kind of.
Still the dairy, egg and poultry marketing boards to go…
I just read Lorne’s article and commented. Old tricks by the CWB is right. Anything to skew the vote in their favour. The Wheat Board Minister should force the CWB to have a fair vote.
Around here the only people who grow wheat these days are a handfull of bored old semi-retired farmers who’ve sold all but 12-40 acres. Not surprisingly many of them support the CWB.
Next on the chopping block? Don’t hold yer breath.
http://www2.macleans.ca/2011/08/15/the-25000-cow/
that would be David Herle, Liberal party strategist? of course he’s pro-wheat board.
The CWB must have too much money if they can afford to pay people like this pollster to be a moron.(unless he was a moron prior to being given a sinecure with a fat government agency) Shut’er down.
btw, one thing almost everyone is failing to consider, that was pointed out in some Manitoba NDP pro-CWB mailouts I received recently, consider the CWB staff who may loose their jobs at the Winnipeg head office. Obviously this should be of great concern to farmers!
Why, oh why don’t they consult the old screamer Wayne Easter, the Liberal expert on the subject all the way from Spud Island?
So I’m curious, farming not being my thing, what other grains are grown.
I’m guessing, that yellow stuff, Rape er Canola plant, whatever it’s called.
Anyone care to educate me lightly as what else grows free of CWB interference?
Green Peas, Yellow Peas, Green Lentils, Red lentils, canaryseed, mustard, sunflowers, feed barley, flax, chickpeas, …
Thanks for that link to the Coyne article,Jamie.
Canadian consumers are prisoners to a scheme that is there to enrich Eastern farmers at our expense.
Coyne mentions that a vote on whether to retain marketing boards was held in Parliament in 2005,and ALL Parties were unanimous in retaining them!
The article is just another example of why we in the West would be better off going it alone. The Canadian political Parties,all of them,are determined to pander to Ontario and Quebec until Hell freezes over,and we in the West will always be the poor country cousins out there in the back forty.
The East is socialist,the West is capitalist,and unless we want to spend eternity subsidizing the East’s inefficient fatcat industries,Western autonomy or outright separation is the way to go.
Now,let’s not get all teary-eyed over wars we fought together over fifty years ago. That was then, this is now.
… Corn, soybeans, safflower, oats, potatoes, hemp, buckwheat, rye, alfalfa, perennial grasses, and my personal favorite, all wheat in Eastern Canada.
… Corn, soybeans, safflower, oats, potatoes, hemp, buckwheat, rye, alfalfa, perennial grasses, and my personal favorite, all wheat in Eastern Canada.
The CWB vote is futile and is only being done to provide the left opposition with propaganda ammunition. As others have pointed out, their vote is effectively an internal referendum. The only vote that matters is the parliamentary one done by our “strong, stable, national Conservative majority government”. And I’m not as confident as Gunter – there’s a good chance the CWB’s “vote” will reflect the CWB’s desired outcome.
The biggest point to make among laymen is that the controversy isn’t over the CWB being abolished or kept. It’s about the CWB being mandatory. Maybe in 1935 there was an argument to be made about prairie collective buying power affecting market prices.. not anymore. Farmers have been quietly screwed for three generations to employ a small unfireable bureaucratic army of CWB staff. If, after being deemed optional, the CWB can’t retain customers, it’s supporting evidence that government agencies don’t belong in the marketplace. 75 years is plenty of time to gain a genuine competitive advantage. I suspect the ugly truth is this: the CWB has been nothing more than a mob-like middleman – a classic rent seeking situation that looks more like “crony capitalism” than anything else.
People not directly involved in farming seem to shut off their brains on the subject. Only a small minority of Canadians realize that (a) it’s a coercive monopoly (b) eastern provinces are exempt. Along with the CBC and a few others, the CWB is on my short list of laughably anachronistic federal agencies.
Listening to the CBC news (sorry…all I can get here) the CWB is done , regardless of votes or polls and will be shut down this year. Harper wants it gone.
Not necessarily, Soccermom. He’s a hired gun doing what his client wants done. He’s also smart enough to know that a dual system means the end of the CWB.
Ralph Goodale was interviewed on an Ottawa radio station recently for all the city people to hear…spouting off about how the CWB gets the BEST possible price for praire wheat producers. Can we all say b*llshit together to that?
What would Ron Paul do?
If the CWB is so damn good why don’t the disingenuous liers in the liberal party (goodale,rae,dion,easter etc) insist that the farmers in quebec and ontario get cut in? You would think they would be outraged at an ommision like that.
kill it
The East is socialist,the West is capitalist,and unless we want to spend eternity subsidizing the East’s inefficient fatcat industries,Western autonomy or outright separation is the way to go.
Posted by: dmorris at 12:08 PM
Exactly!
And don’t forget the endless collumns of overpaid bureacrats with their unearned bonus indexed pensions.
Plus their wholly owned in-house propaganda organ ‘the ceeb’.
All sneering down at us dirty carbon industry region toilers, while forgetting that their fatcat elitist leftard prosperity rests solely on western resource exploitation.
And I mean expolitation in both carbon, and human sense.
The East is socialist,the West is capitalist,and unless we want to spend eternity subsidizing the East’s inefficient fatcat industries,Western autonomy or outright separation is the way to go.
Posted by: dmorris at 12:08 PM
Exactly!
And don’t forget the endless collumns of overpaid bureacrats with their unearned bonus indexed pensions.
Plus their wholly owned in-house propaganda organ ‘the ceeb’.
All sneering down at us dirty carbon industry region toilers, while forgetting that their fatcat elitist leftard prosperity rests solely on western resource exploitation.
And I mean exploitation in both carbon, and human sense.
Nothing like a little Stockholm syndrome. One of my dad’s neighbours asked me what I thought of the wheat board. He had just spoke about how much canola and canary seed he had put in this year. He said that the Board was a good thing, and I pointed out that he’s already voted against it by planting most of his acres to non-Board crops. I also pointed to my dad (who was a staunch supporter until 5 years ago) and reminded them both that there was a year not too long ago that Dad had to sit on his crop for a whole 18 months before he was allowed to sell it to the ethanol plant 15 miles away without penalty. The Board never called his grain that year. I also pointed out that any organization that takes your product and doesn’t pay you full price for 18 months is a bad deal in my mind.
He couldn’t disagree with any of it.
What a disgrace. The CWB has as much place in Canada as does serfdom and caste systems. It should be abolished in the name of liberty and equality, immediately.
“…The East is socialist,the West is capitalist,and unless we want to spend eternity subsidizing the East’s inefficient fatcat industries,Western autonomy or outright separation is the way to go…”
Posted by: dmorris at August 16, 2011 12:08 PM
A recently as a few years ago I would have said that only the supply-mangeement (dairy, eggs, poultry) crowd were commies. But now I see the clamouring in the ranks of Ont. Grain and Oilseed producers for guaranteed prices and I think you’re probably right.
They wouldn’t care if the Hammer and Sickle flew on the Peace Tower…as long as the tax-payer continued to subsidize them.
No pride, no shame. Pity, that.
True words Jamie.
Dear Leader Dalton has announced a Risk Management Plan for Ontario producers.
The very first step in applying is to obtain a premises id number.
Be afraid…very afraid of anything the Ontario Liberals are offering.
My first thought was they are going to create a endangered species habitat registry with the information gathered.
peterj @ 1:11, hope you are right.
True words Jamie and Glengarrian. “Premises id number” is another step in more control over farmers.
The board was put in place to ensure a food supply for our BRITISH allies after one of the world wars.As all bureaucracies it’s mandate evolved to ensure its own survival.Well I think it’s no longer needed.
Make it voluntary if you don’t have the balls to shoot it….
They shouldn’t even hold a vote of farmers, because you can’t vote away your right to market your own grain the way you choose.
The vote the CWB is holding is a joke. My neighbor, like many others doesn’t grow CWB grains any more, and doesn’t get to vote. The guy with the walker who rents his land out does though, and his wife too. Ridiculous.
Thank you Conservatives for getting rid of this state trading agencies monopoly buying power. Finally.
“Premises id number” is another step in more control over farmers.
Posted by: Ken (Kulak) at August 16, 2011 11:28 PM
Yup,
First they came for our swamps, and I did nothing
Then they came for our forests, and I did nothing
And then they came for my fields….
“Over the past two decades, the number of farmers growing wheat and barley on the Prairies has fallen by over 40% as tens of thousands of producers have stopped growing so-called “board grains””
…Another in a long line of my stupid questions…… but here goes. 40% less people producing board grains,… how does this relate to the number of people who have simply stopped farming??
(Not commenting on whether its people that are philosophically opposed to the system that have quit, or if they were forced out…) …. just commenting on the validity of a number spun so hard as to equate to: Drownings are down 100% in the desert this year, (we had one last year).
Its a terrible number form a stupid comparison that has little to do with the issue at hand. And so long as we are debating such, we will never see the real problem.
(Its like the CWB building a voters list based on an arbitrary group they pick and using those skewed numbers to determine that they should exist.)
I expect more from Gunter
I am one of those farmers who has switched to other crops to avoid the CWB. I did attend the CWB meeting in Camrose the other night. The CWB is not letting the facts get in the way of their propoganda. The chair was shameless with his fear mongering but sadly about 2/3 of the crowd lapped it up. I can’t understand how people who market their canola, peas cattle, etc, don;t believe they can also market wheat. I don’t care if there is a CWB, I just don’t want to be forced to do business with it. I simply can’t understand the mentallity of those who feel they have the right to tell me what to do with my wheat. The Left, Liberals, socialist, progressives or whatever they are now calling themselves are a strange bunch. I just hope Ritz and the CPC don’t give in to the bullying and back down.