'The man who killed the family farm'

'The man who killed the family farm'

Postby Oscar » Sun Feb 26, 2012 10:04 am

Understanding the fight to save the Canadian Wheat Board . . .

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'The man who killed the family farm'

[ http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/breaki ... ice=mobile ]

Roving rural columnist finds Harper's decision to dismantle the wheat board goes against the grain for many Manitoba farmers

By: Bill Redekop 02/25/2012 1:00 AM

GILBERT PLAINS -- Clare McBride has already lost her Irish accent, even though her farming family just emigrated from the Emerald Isle in 1998. Except when she gets angry.

When asked what she thinks of Prime Minister Stephen Harper's decision not to let farmers vote on the future of the Canadian Wheat Board, her eyes dilate, her nostrils flare and that clipped, Irish tongue returns in all its glory.

"Stephen Harper's taking something that doesn't belong to him. It belongs to farmers," she fires back.

"It's like he sees a car and goes, 'That's a nice car. I'll just take it.' It's not his."

That feeling of betrayal is being expressed by farmers across the prairies over the Harper government's decision to dismantle the 69-year-old wheat board without allowing farmers a vote.

A recent poll found 62 per cent of farmers favoured keeping the wheat board's monopoly on wheat sales.

I hear the word "dictator" again and again, from farm to farm, as I travel this staunchly pro-wheat board region around Dauphin and to the south of Riding Mountain National Park.

"I remember when we were in the Reform Party together and we talked about direct democracy," recalled Inky Mark, the former MP for this area, about his days with Harper.

Direct democracy was where constituents would be allowed to vote on government policy initiatives and would even have a mechanism for recalling their MP.

Where's that direct democracy now? Mark asked. The federal government refuses to allow farmers to vote on the wheat board.

"It's because (Harper) knows he can't win it," growled McBride.

The Harper government has hardly discussed the issue. One can contrast this process with the intense debate over the Crow Rate rail subsidy in the 1990s.

Then, the government of the day held public meetings with farmers across the Prairies.

There's been none of that.

The Harper government's campaign has been tightly controlled, sticking to two main talking points.

One is the government believes in marketing freedom. Three generations of farmers have been forced to sell their wheat to the wheat board but will no longer after the board is gutted Aug. 1.

The other is the Harper government claims that it doesn't have to give farmers a vote because it was elected in most rural Prairie ridings that have farm constituents.More on these arguments later.

Mark's successor in the riding is Robert Sopuck (Dauphin-Swan River-Marquette). Sopuck recently sat with the PM in lower level seats at the Winnipeg Jets season opener -- a favour that never would have been afforded to Mark. Mark was shunned by the party for representing his constituents' wishes and voting against the government's motions on the wheat board.

Privately, Sopuck has told people he's "a team player" and will abide by his government's decision. Mark has always been a maverick. In an interview with the Free Press, Sopuck denied his region is staunchly pro-wheat board. He maintained farmers in his riding are "split 50-50" on the issue.

"A 50-50 split?" people here reply. "Are you kidding?"

Informed estimates show 80 to 90 per cent of farmers in this riding favour the wheat board.

"People out here think co-operatively. My grandfather said many times the reason he survived was because he could turn to his neighbours," said Larry Bohdanovich, who farms 2,500 acres of crop land south of Grandview and supports the wheat board.

It's a highly ethnic community with a history of pulling together, he continued.

"It's the Ukrainians and Germans and French guys that want the board the most. We tend to co-operate more as a community.

"They are also staunch wheat board supporters simply due to logistics. They are too distant from the Canada-U.S. boundary to benefit from an open border with the U.S. -- that is, if the U.S. keeps its border open after the wheat board's gone.

Some here go so far as to say the government's discourse has tried to mislead. An example is a parliamentary communication sent by MP Merv Tweed (Brandon-Souris) to constituents that said the wheat board was "imposed" on farmers by government. That's a false statement.

The wheat board has been the sole seller of Prairie wheat since 1943, when a Liberal government agreed to farmers' demand to make the wheat board their mandatory seller. Under pressure from farmers, Manitoba later allowed votes to add oats and barley to the wheat board sellers' monopoly, which farmers passed with a majority of about 90 per cent. Saskatchewan and Alberta quickly followed Manitoba's lead.

"I was there. I remember," said Gerald Pederson, 79, who still farms with his son, Delbert, near Newdale.

"It wasn't imposed on us. Farmers were on their knees begging for the wheat board."

Someone who has taken an interest in the wheat board case is Arthur Schafer, Director of the University of Manitoba's Centre for Professional and Applied Ethics.

"The facts seem pretty clear," Schafer maintained. "One is that Western farmers have benefited significantly by selling their wheat through this monopolistic, collective marketing system. It's given them power vis-a-vis the huge grain companies and the international marketplace.

"Dick Dawson, a former senior vice-president of Cargill Canada, once told the Free Press, in a candid moment after his retirement that farmers would be "dumb" to give up the wheat board.

"It's worked bloody well," Dawson said. "The overall scorecard for the wheat board would be a strong one."

MORE:
[ http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/breaki ... ice=mobile ]
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Re: 'The man who killed the family farm'

Postby Oscar » Tue Jul 26, 2016 5:53 pm

Port of Churchill layoffs a preventable tragedy


CANADIAN WHEAT BOARD ALLIANCE
P.O. Box 125, Hussar, Alberta, T0J 1S0
http://www.cwba.ca

NEWS RELEASE July 26, 2016

(Pelly, Sask., July 26, 2016) “The layoff notices to grain workers and others at the port of Churchill, Manitoba are a tragedy for both the workers and farmers in western Canada,” said Kyle Korneychuk spokesperson for the Canadian Wheat Board Alliance (CWBA), an independent prairie-wide farm group. “What is worse is they were entirely preventable.”

Korneychuk went on to say: “Harper Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz understood this very well and provided a subsidy to create the illusion Churchill would remain a viable port after he killed the farmer-controlled Wheat Board. Now that the subsidy is at an end, it is no surprise the layoff notices are coming.”

“The port of Churchill provided a significant freight advantage to eastern Saskatchewan and western Manitoba farmers. Because the single-desk Canadian Wheat Board could service premium customers they fully utilized the port’s facilities and preserved its rail link using a winter rail program to fill the terminal over winter. By coupling this program with on-farm storage premiums, the single desk brought more money to the farm community and kept this strategically vital asset economically viable” observed Korneychuk who served on the CWB’s elected Board of Directors and earlier on the Board of the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool.

“Our organization frequently warned in submissions to the Harper Government and in advertising during Federal elections that the giant private grain handling companies who control the majority of the world’s grain trade have no interest in using Churchill. For them it is a smaller volume facility which they do not own.” Korneychuk observed.

“On the other hand, farmers represented by the single-desk CWB, which owned no port facilities, had no conflict of interest in using whatever port would return the greatest value to producers and Churchill was one of those ports” he said.

“We recognized that shareholders and owners of the multinational grain companies and the two foreign owned railways have different priorities, and these do not include returning the maximum value of prairie grain to producers or maintaining shipments through facilities they do not own.”

Korneychuk concluded by offering his sympathy to the many workers and their families who loaded prairie grain into ships to help prairie farmers feed the world. - 30 –

For further information call: Kyle Korneychuk at (306) 537-0950

- - -

Who We Are: The Alliance is a politically non-partisan organization focused specifically on the Canadian Wheat Board. Members of the Alliance recognize the advantages the Board brought to producers through the single desk and price pooling, quality control through the Canadian Grain Commission (CGC), as well as the important role the CWB played as an advocate for farmers in transportation, producer cars, and on the world stage in trade disputes and negotiations. The Alliance draws memberships throughout the west.
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Re: 'The man who killed the family farm'

Postby Oscar » Wed Aug 03, 2016 3:47 pm

Port of Churchill Latest Casualty due to loss of Single Desk CWB

[ http://us10.campaign-archive1.com/?u=09 ... 5d89e24d0f ]

For immediate release July 29, 2016

It was a previous Liberal government that privatized the railroads and allowed the sale of the Port of Churchill and Hudson Bay rail line to a Denver-based company called OmniTrax.

The Harper government knew that the chance of the Churchill port surviving after the termination of the Canadian Wheat Board was nil. The Wheat Board directed almost 95% of the grain going through the port. “Minister Ritz camouflaged the negative impact for the Port of Churchill by providing the subsidy” states Jan Slomp, NFU president. That subsidy is due to end next year.

“The location of the port is ideal for shipping products to and from Europe, Russia, Mexico, Africa, South America, and the Middle East.Using the Port of Churchill eliminates time-consuming navigation, additional handling and high-cost transportation through the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Seaway.”* [ http://omnitrax.com/our-company/our-rai ... churchill/ ]

OmniTrax, which is the largest employer in Churchill, laid off dozens of workers on Monday and announced that the port will close ahead of schedule on August 6. The loss of jobs will no doubt have a devastating effect on the local economy and is all the more difficult to accept due to the lack of notice and consultation.

This port played a vital role in bringing prairie grains to market and alleviated backups when large shipments occurred.The freight advantage to eastern Saskatchewan and western Manitoban farmers amounted to $10-25/tonne (approximately $1,000/car load) compared to going through the St. Lawrence system.

This, when Canadian farmers and grain shippers are anticipating a massive grain crop. The Western Grain Elevators Association are projecting this year’s crop will be 63 million tonnes at minimum and could be as a large as 74.1 million tonnes. This would be similar in size to the 2013-14 record breaking crop when millions of tonnes were left stranded and estimated to have cost the Prairie economy $5 billion.

Four giant grain companies now control the grain handling system and none of them own the port of Churchill.

So why are we forgoing our interest in strategic infrastructure? “How can OmniTrax unilaterally decide to close a port that is of such strategic importance to Canada?”asks Slomp. “The federal government should intervene.”

Terry Boehm says, "When we rely on privatization as the solution to all economic matters, the narrow interests of businesses often negatively impact the greater interests of the Canadian economy as a whole. The closure of Churchill is another huge example of this." - 30 -

For more information:

Jan Slomp, President, NFU: 250- 898-8223
Terry Boehm, Past president, NFU: 306-255-2880

*Taken off the OmniTrax website – omnitrax.com


Contact information:

Website: http://www.nfu.ca
Telephone: 306-652-9465
Email: nfu@nfu.ca
Mailing address: 2717 Wentz Ave., Saskatoon, SK S7K 4B6
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