From the “When Saturday Comes” message board, in the UK;

Lots of detail regarding the ad campaign, too.

Just pathetic.

Narrative Advocacy Media is a Toronto-based PR firm (whose clients include the Ontario government and provincial Liberals).
On November 2nd, they issued this news release on behalf of the Canadian Wheat Board. It included this link to print and radio ad files.
The ads were created by Bensimon and Byrne, a Toronto-based ad agency.
This print ad appeared in the Toronto-based Globe and Mail. The newspaper placement alone cost an estimated $72,000.

Click for full size
The radio ads are running in the Toronto and Ottawa markets only.
All paid for by prairie farmers.
Related – Wheat Growers to launch legal action against the CWB

Jeff Nielsen, District 2 Director – “The board’s decision to take legal action against the federal government, even after hearing from our counsel and our external counsel that such a challenge would be fruitless and would have little to no effect on the government moving ahead with Bill C-18, shows a total disrespect for producers and the stable government infrastructure that underpins our society.”

George Morris Centre;

“In Western Canada, acreage of CWB crops has been declining for many years, while the acreage of crops outside of CWB control has been steady or rapidly growing. This decline in wheat and barley acreage is broadly inconsistent with yield growth trends, and expected profitability”, says Al Mussell, Senior Research Associate and co-author of the report. “Something else has influenced producers to vote with their feet”.
At the same time, investment has lagged in CWB grains – but has been much more aggressive in non-CWB crops. According to Kate Stiefelmeyer, Research Associate and co-author of the study, “We haven’t seen investment in barley malting facilities in nearly 20 years, and major investments have been lacking in flour milling and durum processing in western Canada”.

Footnotes:
[1] – I’m blogging this Halloween in a CBC headline writer costume.
Related: Henry Vos: ” Why I Stepped Down From The CWB Board of Directors”

Privy Council Office;

His Excellency the Governor General in Council, on the recommendation of the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food, pursuant to subsection 18(1) of the Canadian Wheat Board Act, hereby directs The Canadian Wheat Board to conduct its operations under that Act, while the Bill entitled Marketing Freedom for Grain Farmers Act is being considered by Parliament, in the following manner:
(a) it shall avoid extraordinary actions or commitments that would be contrary to the best interests of The Canadian Wheat Board if that Bill is passed by Parliament and receives royal assent; and
(b) it shall credit profits or gains referred to in sections 8, 33.01 and 39.1 of the Canadian Wheat Board Act to the contingency fund established under paragraph 6(1)(c.3) of that Act, unless a different disposition of those profits or gains is required under that Act.

Related: Facts, Lies and the House Debate – I am utterly amazed that Mr. Goodale, the author and architect of the current CWB Act, would actually take the position that an Act that he wrote was meant to bind future governments to this policy, which would mean they can’t repeal the Act. Are we really supposed to believe that was his intent?
UPDATE – Open letter from Henry Vos who has just quit as a CWB director.

The CWB’s decision this week to launch a legal challenge against the Federal Government over the proposed changes to the CWB ACT, when it is clear to everyone that it will not change the outcome and would not change the timing of the government action, is simply wrong.

They refused to adapt. They deserve to die.

The proposed law would eliminate 10 elected positions from the board of directors, leaving government appointees. Those five appointees will be in charge of producing a business plan to privatize the board by 2016, with the minister of agriculture to decide whether it’s viable.
If the agriculture minister decides the plan isn’t viable, the government can permanently shut down the Wheat Board.

Note: the CBC has a poll….

“We’ll help you blow out your candles.” Heh.
h/t Larry

An anonymous petition goes horribly wrong…

h/t Rob

Now is the time at SDA when we juxtapose!
Saskatchewan’s NDP gov’t puts tax dollars to work in 2007;

Work on the $1 million dollar project will be complete by July 31, 2007. The tender for painting the [100 government owned] hopper cars has been awarded to GE Railcar Repair Service Company of Regina and the contract for the decals has been awarded to Arco Graphics Inc. of Saskatoon.

Your tax dollars, still at work four years later;

Just one of 5 similarly redecorated redecorated government hopper cars spotted yesterday at Aylesbury, SK.

Tammy Robert;

Mark Stobbe is an evaluator for my 7-year-old’s minor hockey. Anyone know if he’s, oh, still charged with 2nd degree murder?

“No expensive survey can trump the individual right of farmers to market their own grain.”

When refined in the US. Bugger the beetles:

The Politics of a Pipeline
State takes one step forward, but the greens are furious.
…
That was in April 2010. But the EPA cried foul, and State went back to work. Sixteen months later, State has now produced its latest impact statement. Volume One alone runs to more than 500 pages, taking in such considerations as “direct impacts to beetles”…
Alas, the saga is far from over…
Your guess is as good as Ms. Kidder’s about where Mr. Obama comes down—and it’s a pity that the decision will have at least as much to do with his re-election calculations as it does with U.S. energy security and job creation. But as a case study in how political indecision and bureaucratic delay contribute to the sickly economy we have today, the Keystone XL drama has few equals.

Thanks, Mr.President!

The utterly feckless Obama administration just handed our chief grain export competitor a market of almost 50 million, second largest in South America. Most Canadian wheat is exported from Vancouver, whence it is an easy run to Buenaventura, one of the best Colombian grain ports. This is a totally unforced error from the current administration, one of depressingly many.

Oops…

Passing trade deals is something that “Congress can do right now,” remarked President Obama Monday at a town hall meeting in Cannon Falls, Minnesota.
Not so fast. The truth is that Congress can’t do anything on free trade agreements “right now,” because the President has yet to send the agreements to Congress for final approval, despite receiving recommendations on the agreements from Congress on July 7.

Lorne Gunter;

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.”

Be sure to stop by and welcome Wheat Board chairman Allen Oberg to the blogosphere!

When’s the last time you sympathized with a hostage-taker? (h/t Derek)

…in Delisle last night. No damage here, but lots of neighbors weren’t so lucky.

Indeed.

And now is the time at SDA when we juxtapose!

For the fourth consecutive month, Saskatchewan has the lowest unemployment rate in Canada.
Saskatchewan’s June unemployment rate of 4.9 per cent (seasonally adjusted) was well below the national average of 7.4 per cent. The number of unemployed was down by 3,600 (13.1 per cent) – the third highest percentage decline among provinces.

Yup, it’s a headscratcher. (Related)