Last fall the pasta plant was announced with much fanfare and the presence of Prime Minister Harper and his Agriculture Minister who contended it was evidence their legislation ending the single desk Wheat Board had stimulated value adding.

“Obviously the management of Alliance Grain Traders has now done its due diligence and discovered what grain farmers have known for decades – any kind of enterprise in the west faces brutal transportation economics simply because we are so far from any significant markets,” Gehl said.

“They may have even discovered that with the loss of the Wheat Board’s single desk, small processors face an even bigger challenge.  Our Wheat Board had a policy of treating all processors equally so large processors could not obtain volume discounts from farmers and push out smaller operations,” explained Gehl, “and now that fairness will end with the single desk.”

“Many are starting to regret listening to ideologically driven politicians like Ritz and Harper.  Last October a major Canadian company, Legumex Walker Inc. announced its new $110 million US canola crushing plant is to be located in Washington State to be closer to markets.  At the time, we pointed out the Wheat Board has nothing to do with canola, so this ought to have been a red flag to Alliance Grain Traders’ management and those who believed our Wheat Board inhibited value adding on the prairies.  However neither the Prime Minister or the Agriculture Minister listened and now Alliance Grain Traders has learned the PM has no magic wand that can change the fact we produce grain behind a wall of mountain ranges and huge land distances to ocean ports.

“For small grain processors like Alliance Grain Traders to survive they need the fairness our single desk Wheat Board brought to the market place.  Without it both farmers and processors lose” Gehl concluded.

 “It is unusual to see any elected official defy a Federal Court ruling to implement legislation as Minister Ritz has done with the Wheat Board,” Gehl said, “but it is even more unusual for appointed Directors to place themselves at such great personal risk to carry out what the Courts may well determine are illegal acts which violate their fiduciary duties not only to the organization, but to its rightful owners, the farmers of western Canada.”

“We are already hearing expressions of concern from our international customers and this gutting of CWB staff brings into question our ability to effectively feed the world with the same guaranteed quality of grain.  This has implications for global food security and more than just western farmers will want to know who is responsible.  The first place many will look is to Minister Ritz’s appointees who as directors must bear responsibility for their actions.  They would be well advised to consider the consequences of another Court ruling favourable to western farmers” Gehl concluded.

- 30 –

It was always a contrast to the private grain traders whose only loyalty was to the shareholders of their employer.  The more thoughtful employees of the private trade recognized they were involved in a zero sum game of swindling farmers and exploiting their powerlessness.

Until the Harper pogrom against Canada, CWB employees had the benefit of earning what most saw as a “right livelihood” and their resulting dedication showed not only in their day to day dealings with sometimes hostile farmers acting out of ignorance of a very complex grain trade, but in the continued loyalty of many former employees to farmers and their welfare.

In spite of the fact a Federal Court Judge ruled Agriculture Minster Gerry Ritz’s legislation changing the CWB was illegal, his appointees are systematically purging Wheat Board staff.

The reaction to the news the Wheat Board will lose 70% of its staff by this summer is mixed.  The collection of internet trolls supporting Agriculture Minister Ritz have remarked that now there are fewer people sponging off farmers, and Ritz’s paid collection of cheerleaders in the Astroturf groups are applauding.  This is wholly disingenuous.  Even the most inattentive must have noticed the feeding frenzy as a new crop of private sector sponges line up at the trough to take money from newly powerless farmers.  The majority of western farmers who understand the international grain trade and voted to keep the single desk CWB are appalled but not surprised at this abuse of power.

At this stage, Harper and his collection of useful idiots and sycophants have, to use an appropriate Shakespearian quote, “piled sin upon sin.”  Although it may be too late to avert the misery of the staff being unjustly fired, the Courts will shortly have an opportunity to reverse this illegal nonsense.

As the chaos unfolding in the western grain industry comes home to the rest of Canada, the set of court cases designed to restore the CWB will be a test.  Does Canada wish to succeed as a nation by protecting a resource that is both fundamental to national survival and critical to feeding the world?  Or will it give up western Canada’s marketing and quality control arm, the single desk CWB and settle for less?

More than Medicare and other icons of Canada, the Wheat Board represents not only the lynch pin of western agriculture, but the wellspring of much that is essential to Canada as a nation.  It is no accident that every Member of Parliament voted to make the CWB single desk permanent.

Nations can fail and often do, but if our institutions fail western farmers who depend on the single desk Wheat Board in the great game of global competition, then recrimination lays ahead.  Farmers and CWB staff who dedicated their efforts to truly helping farmers deserve better.

This institutional destruction is something conservatives throughout modern history have worked assiduously to avoid.  What a pity and irony that the vandals of this world now claim the title of those who should most hate such destruction.

Grain Growers’ executive director Richard Phillips tactlessly comments in this article farmers  need to use the CWB or lose it.

This idea coming from Phillips is ironic  and quite frankly  foolish.   Phillips was a cheerleader for his Conservative patrons as they crippled the CWB by removing  most of its powers including the single desk. The CWB is now just another grain broker without  access to the complete elevator system and no ability to allocate rail cars. This is because the CWB cannot get all the grain companies to sign handling agreements beneficial to farmers. So it is basically impossible for farmers in many areas to move grain through the CWB when they don’t have access to a company willing to handle CWB grain.  It is dishonest to blame farmers for not doing business with a CWB that cannot physically handle their grain.

If Phillips subscribes to the use it or lose it philosophy, than why doesn’t he apply it to his own organization?  Why not have public policy meetings so farmers can direct the Grain Growers group to do things farmers want – not what the government wants? Why didn’t they support the right of farmers to vote on the changes to the CWB, instead of acting like Conservative lackeys? Why does the Grain Growers hide behind the its phoney membership of industry-dominated check-off organizations?

If the CWB fails, it cannot be blamed on farmers, period – full stop.  We never got our right to  vote because folks like Philips thought farmers weren’t smart enough to pick our own future.

The current legislation ends the CWB in less than five years.  We can thank the Conservatives, as well as characters like Phillips who acted as their mouthpiece for setting the CWB up for a fall.  I hope Mr. Phillips enjoys his day in the sun being rewarded by having the Minister’s ear.

Kyle Korneychuk,   Pelly, Sask.

Ms. Nagel obviously took him at his word.  Pity she did not understand a few simple facts.  Facts like: it is not physically possible to move all the grain grown on the prairies to port in a few weeks after harvest.  It takes all year because there are simply not enough terminal elevators to handle it all at once.

Oh, another pesky fact.  Customers only want grain, well, when they want it.

Perhaps Ms. Nagel is getting a bit concerned about delivering on that much publicized contract because at a recent meeting Ms. Nagle received a cold shower of reality from the head of CP Rail when she told him “We’re kind of looking for real good service right off the combine,” asking if CP Rail will add more cars to accommodate her.

“No,” was the blunt reply from CP which apparently sparked laughter around the room.

As Ms. Nagel and no doubt many other farmers will find out, without the CWB farmers have very little influence over railway performance or indeed much else.  All Ms. Nagle can do is sue CP rail for making her start that truck and grain auger in the middle of a cold Saskatchewan winter.  She can also pray that the durum contracts she signed with such fanfare let her off the hook for late delivery.

The Canadian Wheat Board successfully sued both railways for poor performance.  Without that strength in numbers individuals like Ms. Nagel are essentially helpless.  If past history is any guide, she can expect no help from the grain handling companies simply because their multi-million dollar inland elevators are captive to one of the two railways.  For them discretion has always been the better part of valour, and rather than fight the railways, it is easier and safer for them to take more money from farmers.  After all, the grain companies have a lot more capital on the line than a farmer from Saskatchewan.

Here’s a hot market tip for the Western Canadian Wheat Growers:  stock up on starting fluid, you may need it this winter.

No rail cars available: Wheat Grower Assoc. moves grain off combine to port - may not be exactly as illustrated

His warning to Canadian Pacific Railway shareholder Pershing Square Capital Management that focusing on profits will hurt shippers is simply disingenuous.  It is the rules and conditions Mr. Strahl helped to put in place that will allow this group to use its market power to take more money from farmers.

When Mr. Strahl was Minster of Agriculture and Transportation he only listened to calls from astro-turf farm groups like the Western Barley Growers Association with a membership of less than 130 farmers, to dismantle the single-desk of the Canadian Wheat Board.  Real farm groups and the farmer controlled Wheat Board itself warned him that one of the negative consequences would be railways taking advantage of farmers’ loss of power to take more profits from farmers.

Strahl should have known that only the Wheat Board had the independence to challenge the railways.  He certainly could not have missed the fact the only real improvement in railway service happened after the Wheat Board successfully sued both foreign-owned railways for poor service and took tens of millions of dollars in penalties from them.

He should also have known that grain handling companies, no matter how large are captive to the two railways and have seldom, if ever, launched level of service complaints with the Canadian Transportation Commission.  Nor have the grain handling companies taken the railways to court as the farmer controlled CWB did.  Rather than fight with the railways they simply pass extra costs onto farmers.

In the November 21/11 Macleans magazine there is a business section article where Pershing Square Capital Management indicated it expected freight rates on the prairies to increase anywhere between 25 and 50%.  This will cripple most export oriented farmers.  With the single-desk Wheat Board gone, knowledgeable people, like Mr. Strahl, are attempting to distance themselves from the disaster for grain producers unfolding on the prairies.

Among other things, the Charter is meant to moderate the historic reality of British Parliamentary history which grew out of an aristocratic conception of citizenship.  In that system, only members of Royalty were seen as fully human, while the rest of us were considered chattels, along with sheep and game animals.

This concept is still alive with the argument that Parliament is supreme even when our defective electoral system bestows a majority of Parliamentary seats on a political party which the majority of Canadians actually voted against.  Although imperfect, the Courts and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms are intended to counteract this, and other weaknesses of our political system.

Part of our Constitutional legal challenge to Ottawa’s seizure of our Canadian Wheat Board rests on a Charter based argument.  Here is an explanation of why the Charter is important from a Canadian journalist.

Gehl observed, “these are the first steps towards privatizing plant breeding, and ending the historic partnership between farmers, scientists, and the Federal government to develop grain varieties in the public interest, and local MP Candice Hoeppner has obviously failed to understand the implications of this move.  This leaves varietal development in the hands of private corporations whose primary interest is selling genetically modified and patented seed which forces farmers to not only purchase seed every year, but also the proprietary chemicals for use on that seed.”

Gehl went on to explain “we have already seen this model fail in canola where organic farmers and farmers who do not want to grow GM canola are forced out of production.  Moving this model to cereal grains expands this conflict of interest and will cost farmers millions of extra dollars each year.  It also means urban consumers will no longer have a choice about eating genetically modified wheat and other grains, since the current partnership between farmers, plant breeders, and the Federal Government for developing varieties in the public interest will be diminished by Minister Ritz’s actions.”

Many of the staff being fired are experts in plant genetics, plant diseases, including fusarium, and state of the art genetic tracking of plant enzyme systems.  These people and their support teams are the future of conventional and genetic based plant breeding for western Canada.  Their expertise has been developed with financial support from farmers and the people of Canada, and their expertise and experience will be lost to Canadians as they are scooped up by foreign owned chemical and seed companies.

All food and medicinal plants have been treated by farmers over the last 10,000 or so years as “open source” software with the benefits freely shared.  In fact it was Canada’s Dominion Cerealist, Charles Saunders, who developed the basic wheat variety which made wheat production in North America viable.  This has been a tradition since Canada was settled.

Gehl concluded “this is another example of Ottawa seizing a public resource and giving it to private industry.”

- 30 –

I attended the CWB meeting in Ohaton AB along with about 150 other farmers to hear about the changing landscape to grain marketing and the CWB without the single desk. I knew real farmers were there because the street was lined with ½ tons.

The first presentation was a sugar coated package by CWB employee Gord Flaten about how wonderful it was that Harper & Ritz are paying off the Lakers cost, and the severance costs of fired CWB employees.  He neglected to tell the farmers that our own money earned from grain sales and put into our contingency fund was paying for this.  He went on to say this new Grain Agency or Company, the “Conservative Wheat Board” (Con Board) would be a functioning Company on Aug.1 2012.

The new Con Board will be keeping the Office Bld. in Winnipeg, 1700 or so Hopper Cars, the Lakers, and a scaled down staff. Flaten went on to explain the grain marketing programs of the new Con Board.  On the question of where the profits will go on grain sales outside the Pools, Flaten dropped a bombshell when he said “it will go to the Government.”

There was a rumble of disgust and annoyance across the room when farmers heard that the Harper & Ritz Govt will use the profits from farmers’ grain to do as they please. Flaten responded by saying farmers needed to think long term, the next 4 yrs. about what they want to see happen with the Con Board.  He said farmers could buy it back, that we needed to talk to our MP’s, and other farmers, and act or it will be sold off.

Why would farmers want to support the Con Board for the next 4 yrs. to sustain assets we once owned? Why play that game when Harper & Ritz hold all the cards in their stacked deck?

As I see it there are two options. The court has ruled Ritz broke the rule of law, so they must enforce that ruling and give us back our Wheat Board, or sell all the assets and pay it out to Western Canadian Farmers.

Dale Fankhanel
New Norway

By Don Bamber
Western Producer, Feb. 14, 2012