Another spending scandal in Saskatchewan

By Bruce Johnstone, The Leader-Post May 24, 2013   While all eyes are focused on the Senate expense scandal, another Harper government scandal is slowly unfolding right here in Saskatchewan. The scandal, if you will, is the wholesale dismantling of government institutions, including Canadian Wheat Board, Canadian Grain Commission, Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Administration, Community Pasture...

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Welcome to Alberta

Ottawa is just feeling more and more familiar to this Albertan.  I don’t really mean Ottawa the city, but the Conservatives’ government there, largely run by Albertans. Here in Alberta we are used to major public hearings directly affecting farmers and ranchers being held right in the middle of harvest or spring seeding, just to make life a little easier for industry and a lot harder for...

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Rust Never Sleeps

(April 24, 2013) Not many non-historians know that the ancient Roman Empire ran on wheat.  Its major grain growing area was in North Africa, centered on present day Tunisia.  Roman wheat farms were typically about sixteen hundred acres and supported about 10 coloni families and the estate owner.  The families did the work and made extra money growing dates, olives, and exotic birds for Roman...

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Ag Media turns cheerleader

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.

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