This writer never thought he would quote the US Republican Vice-Presidential candidate Sarah Palin but one of her favorite jibes was to refer to the main stream media as the “lame-stream media.” This is an apt description for much of the western Canadian agricultural media after the single desk.
With all too few notable exceptions, the west’s agricultural media are full of stories about how well everything is going without the farmer-controlled Wheat Board. If things are really so great, why did Minister Ritz put $350 million taxpayer dollars into his bogus CWB especially when his legislation took over a $100 million of farmers’ cash from the now dead Canadian Wheat Board? His cronies are busy selling assets seized from farmers as fast as they can. Just what are they trying to paper over?
The usual incestuous little group of commentators and Astroturf groups, largely financed by Gerry Ritz’s agriculture department, are quoted putting up strawman arguments along with the old “you’ve never had it so good” song and dance. This is certainly an ominous phrase for Canada made famous by Conservative Prime Minister Harold Macmillan in 1957 just before he led Britain into economic and political decline which even the liquidation of North Sea oil twenty years later could not stop.
Canadian Politicians – may not be exactly as illustrated
Canada is essentially the only country in the world with surplus grain to export this year, so it is hardly surprising that prices are up a bit, at least as long as you don’t count the loss to farmers of the extra money for high protein wheat or malt barley which were a regular benefit of the single desk, but these have been largely ignored by the agricultural press.
Whatever the stenographers of the lame stream media publish, it should be pretty obvious that Minister Ritz is not sitting on the fence when it comes to pouring public money into making his creation look good.
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