Barley B.S.

The underwhelming coverage of the Conservative attempt coup d'etat at the Wheat Board.

The Blogging Tories who should be overwhelmingly leading the cheering section here, have nada, zip, zero, nothing to say about the Barley Plebiscite.

And no I am not kidding.

This is astounding that those who have lobbied and fought so long and hard to destroy the farmer cooperative which for them has been a symbol of Canadian Socialism have been deafening in their silence on the barley plebiscite. Stage One of the Conservative governments dismantling of the producer cooperative they call a Monopoly.

I even checked the Canadian Blog Exchange and found only posts by Progressive Bloggers.

In fact members of the Progressive Bloggers posted seven stories.

Tories Sink To New Depths On Barley Vote

Stacking the deck

Do Farmers Know What They Really Voted For?

Sham

A resounding outcome

Farmers Reject Phony Plebiscite

Misusing regulations and how the Conservative's plan to dismantle the CWB's monopoly.

I had to Google blogs on the Wheat Board before I could find a single BT who blogged on the issue.

However never let it be said that Sad Sack Kate over at SDA did not leave a stone unturned. She did blog on the Barley vote. And she too tried to point out that the majority voted for choice. Which of course ignores the fact that the majority voted to keep the Wheat Board, even if they supported choice. And that an even greater majority boycotted the government sponsored vote.

Which corresponds to something I have observed; the BT's are predominately Easterners. And when they are Westerners they are too busy reading, studying, repeating, and reiterating Republican thought from south of the border.

Showing that the real radical reform politics that is Prairie Populism, proves the West is Left.

And so this most essential Western Canadian issue of political import, as Janis Joplin would say, was of no import to the Conservative Government echo chamber.

Passing strange since Chuck Strahl and the government claimed it was a victory.

If it was a victory it was a hollow one. Little fanfare for the Barley plebiscite amongst the echo chamber, little pro government coverage in the MSM, and the majority of farmers rejected the Conservatives attempt to eliminate the Wheat Board through its plebiscite.

Passing strange indeed. As Sherlock Holmes would say about the lack of response from the BT; the dog did not bark in the night.

I s there any point to which you would wish to draw my attention?"
"To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time."
"The dog did nothing in the night-time."
"That was the curious incident"

(Silver Blaze)

And the irony here is that the Wheat Board this Conservative government so hates and wishes to abolish is the creature of previous Conservative governments.

Is CWB vote beginning of the end?

The Edmonton Journal

Published: Saturday, March 31, 2007

It was a Conservative who first created the Canadian Wheat Board, another Conservative who made it a monopoly, so it's only fitting that it's a Conservative who seems eager to pull the trigger on its execution.

In 1917, Robert Borden established the Board of Grain Supervisors to establish a price for grain in an effort to limit volatility in a time of war. After the war ended, the board became known as the Canadian Wheat Board. In 1935 -- at the height of the Great Depression and the dust bowl -- the board was taken over by R.B. Bennett's government to ensure Western farmers a consistent and predictable return on their crops. Losses were covered by the government, and profits absorbed by it.

Now, the Harper government plans to break the seven-decade-old monopoly system based on a confusing, one-sided, and supposedly non-binding referendum in which opponents of the wheat board -- including some of the companies that stand to benefit most from the end of the wheat board monopolies -- were allowed to run a public relations campaign against the single-desk barley and grain marketing board, while the board was unable to campaign to remind farmers of the services it provides.

Even with that, only 14 per cent of 29,076 farmers (the government has not revealed how many were actually eligible to vote) chose to completely remove the wheat board from the barley market. The rest of the votes split relatively evenly between maintaining the monopoly as it is, and giving farmers "a choice" of selling to the wheat board or going it alone on the open market.

The wheat board exists principally to reduce the volatility inherent in farming and to guarantee farmers a more steady cash flow. Critics of the Harper government's plan to "offer choice" say that without a monopoly, this function is virtually impossible, since non-CWB farmers taking their crops to market will always be in a position to undersell the board.

If the board is forced to try to undercut the non-CWB farmers, that will prompt a rush to the bottom, pushing prices downward -- good for the foreign buyers, but bad for Canada.

Even if the wheat board could outsell the individual farmers, it would be a ridiculous proposition for a federally owned organization to be in direct competition with other Canadian farmers. Moreover, it would also almost surely run afoul of trade law, which currently only tolerates the wheat board because it was grandfathered into Canadian trade agreements.

This likely means the only logical outcome of ending the wheat board's monopoly is for it to leave the playing field for barley. And, presumably, it's only a matter of time before the government presses for "choice" on all forms of wheat sales, with a similar outcome.

See:

Wheat Board

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Junk Science: Ethanol

So who benefits from the Conservatives push for Ethanol? Big Agri-business, the opponents of the Wheat Board, and the Blogging Tories and their pals run the Canadian Renewable Fuels Association.

You have seen the CRFA ads on TV complete with a nerdy goof promoting Harpers 5% promise. That we will have 5% ethanol for cars in Canada. The guy has to be a Blogging Tory.

Gee I have heard that 5% promise before,about the GST, but that still hasn't happened either.

But does ethanol help the environment? Well like the Conservative government's Clean Air Act, the answer is no.

Mowhak and Petro-Canada have been selling Ethanol for years in Canada as an additive, and we still have air pollution and greenhouse gas.

Ethanol auto emissions no greener than gasoline: study

The federal Conservative government committed $2 billion in incentives for ethanol, made from wheat and corn, and biodiesel in last week's budget.

But based on Ottawa's own research, critics say the investment is based more on myth than hard science.

Scientists at Environment Canada studied four vehicles of recent makes, testing their emissions in a range for driving conditions and temperatures.

"Looking at tailpipe emissions, from a greenhouse gas perspective, there really isn't much difference between ethanol and gasoline," said Greg Rideout, head of Environment Canada's toxic emissions research.

"Our results seemed to indicate that with today's vehicles, there's not a lot of difference at the tailpipe with greenhouse gas emissions."

The study found no statistical difference between the greenhouse gas emissions of regular unleaded fuel and 10 per cent ethanol blended fuel.

Although the study found a reduction in carbon monoxide, a pollutant that forms smog, emissions of some other gases, such as hydrocarbons, actually increased under certain conditions.

Bill Rees, an ecology professor at the University of British Columbia and longtime opponent of ethanol, has read the report and thinks Canadians need to know its conclusions.

"I must say, I'm a little surprised at that, because it seems to fly in the face of current policy initiatives," he said.

"People are being conned into believing in a product and paying for it through their tax monies when there's no justifiable benefit and indeed many negative costs."

See

Bio Fuel

Bio-Fuels

ADM

Ethanol


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Farmers Reject Phony Plebiscite

That should be the headline in the papers today, but it isn't. The headlines are full of government spin on their failed barley plebiscite.

A total of 62 per cent of just over 29,000 farmers who cast eligible ballots said they wanted the board out of the barley market altogether, or for the board to participate in a competitive market. Another 38 per cent said they wanted to maintain the status quo.

Farmers overwhelmingly rejected Chuck Strahl's plebiscite as it was not sanctioned by the Wheat Board. About 86,000 ballots were mailed out based on crop insurance data.

Now at least in some reports those ballots were as high as 89,000. That means if 29,000 farmers voted even with my terrible reputation at math that works out to one third voted not even fifty percent as the government claims.

Strahl said KPMG, the firm that handled the plebiscite for the government, made every effort to ensure only eligible votes were counted. Voter turnout was just over 50 per cent. Strahl said many eligible voters said they didn't bother to vote because they only sell their barley to feed lots, not the wheat board.

So if two thirds of prairie farmers don't vote that means they support the status quo.

The real number that supports the Conservatives opposition to the existence of the farmer owned producer coop; the Canadian Wheat Board they can only muster up amongst their Reform Party base in Southern Saskatchewan and Alberta, 15.2% of the total who voted. Not even the total who could vote.

Contrary to Strahl's math; where he combines pro-choice with anti-Wheat Board,and proudly announces that his side won with 62%, Wayne Easterly the Agriculture critic for the Liberals was justified in pointing out that the numbers could equally show support for the Wheat Board 87.2%. Since those that answered question number two wanted both choice and the Wheat Board.

As Neil Waugh points out in the Edmonton Sun;

Another 15.2% said get rid of the board altogether when it came to the barley business. Still, it was enough to carry the day.

In the four western provinces, where the CWB monopoly rules, the overall result saw only 37.8% back the so-called "single desk," while pro choice hit 49.4%.

But when the Saskatchewan numbers were broken out - where 15,327 farmers voted - 45% chose to extend the monopoly.

In Manitoba, where it appeared a boycott was in the works, 50.6% of only 3,703 barley producer cast ballots saying leave it be.

In B.C., the vote was 49.4% pro choice. But only 156 ballots were in the boxes.

Interesting that Waugh fails to note the Alberta number of votes, in his article.
Well in all the rest of the provinces, total votes other than Alberta; 19,186 That leaves Alberta with less than 10,000 votes and Waugh fails to break them down.

They were 9,881 total votes. It was in Alberta that the plebiscite got 15% support for getting rid of the Wheat Board, the same number as the national result. In fact all of Strahl's numbers are for Alberta.

They are not the reality of the prairie position on the Wheat Board.

Farmer support for Option 1 the Wheat Board was;

Manitoba 50.6%
Saskatchewan; 45.1%
B.C.; 42%

Farmer support for Option 2 market to Wheat Board or on my own;
Manitoba; 34.5%
Saskatchewan; 42.1%
B.C.; 49%

In Manitoba and Saskatchewan the majority of farmers support the Wheat Board, their farmer owned producer cooperative.

Only in B.C. is it the reverse, but the government in its desperation looks at percentages instead of core numbers. B.C. only had 156 votes compared to Manitoba and Saskatchewan's 19,0000 votes.

That's because the Conservatives included B.C. making this not a prairie farm vote but a Western one.

Just as Alberta's vote skews the numbers.

For Option 1: 21.4%
For Option 2: 63.4%

Prairie farmers face their battle to maintain their producer cooperative not with Ottawa, but with Alberta and its party in Ottawa.

The government asked three questions. Period. And there was no clear winner. The government has to resort to arithmetricks.

The reality is that 57,000-60,000 farmers abstained from voting, a boycott was called, and they did not vote in the governments fixed plebiscite. That is twice as many as voted, and a clear rejection of Strahl and the Alberta Reform Party Farm lobby.

See:

Wheat Board

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CN not hurting

CN awaits the State to legislate UTU workers back to work. They have made no effort to deliver just in time.

Rather they would sacrifice Canadians needs on the backs of their workers. It is after all a sure fire way of increasing your stock price. And your salary.

Ironically 'precision railroad' sounds a lot like precision model trains, and that is how Hunter Harrison has been running CN. Like his own toy railroad in his rec room. Or should that be wreck room?

The bottom line: Did CN push too hard?

In his four years at the throttle, Hunter Harrison has revolutionized how CN Rail does business, driving productivity, boosting the stock price by 150 per cent and making $56-million in 2005 for himself in his pursuit of a "precision railroad."

Five day stock price during strike

CNR (Canadian National Railway Company )
Last:	$54.45
Change:	+0.51 (+0.95%)
Revenue (ttm):	$7,716.0M
EPS:	3.91
Market Cap:	$27,493.13M
Time:	4:23pm ET

The strike is unlikely to have much of an impact on Canada's economy if it's settled within a month, Robert Hogue, a Bank of Montreal economist, said today in a report. ``While the current impact on business and many remote communities can be heavy, much of the broader economic toll, if any, will only surface if the strike carries on significantly longer,'' Hogue said.

The government is using the pretext of inconvenience to bring in Back To Work Legislation today. But inconvenience by whom?

Blaming the workers instead of CN which refuses to bargain. Notice the State always brings in " back to work" legislation, never back to bargaining legislation. And notice who is returning to work for the good of the country.

Lee Rawsthorne of the United Transportation Union local in Winnipeg said the returnees include about 150 workers in Winnipeg, roughly 30 in Dauphin and about six in Brandon.

Workers in Melville, Sask., are also reported to have laid down their picket signs.

Rawsthorne said the national union may not approve of the return to the job, but he said workers felt it was the right thing to do.

"It was never our intention to damage our country," he told CBC News. "It was to try to negotiate a deal.

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CN


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Could CN Bring Down Harper?

Well it could. They don't have enough votes to push back to work legislation on CN workers.

Back to work legislation is what CN was hoping for, thus they have refused to bargain. Which is why the Government stepped away from the strike hoping it would go away. It didn't and now they are over ruling their own Labour Board and trying to bring in back to work legislation. When it comes to CN they may be privatized but the State still gives them preferential treatment they got when they were a Crown Corporation.

Now if the Canadian UTU were really militant it would refuse to go back to work. Even if legislated back. Which CUPW did many years ago even though the Government jailed its leadership. Making them Labour Martyrs for years after.

As it is even an attempt to pass the legislation tonight in the House could be defeated. Which is what UTU is hoping for.....high hopes...like that ant and the rubber tree plant.

Ironically the last time CN workers were legislated back to work was when the company was still a Crown Corporation.

Government readies back-to-work order as CN strikers reject voluntary return

The Canada Industrial Relations Board refused to rule the wages-based strike illegal Monday after Blackburn said he wanted the dispute "ended in hours, not days."

The union had said it would send its members back if CN's request for a back-to-work order were approved by the board.

Asked how the union would respond to a legislated order, Wilner said: "Well, they have to get it passed first. Our understanding is that they don't have the votes and they could wind up having to call new elections if they fail."

There is plenty of precedent for federal back-to-work legislation, particularly in the railway sector. Such laws have been enacted 31 times since 1950, including six times in the rail industry, most recently in 1995.

See

Scab Trains Go Off The Tracks

CN Whines

CN Wildcat

American Union Bosses

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Corn Crisis

Once again the State interferes in the marketplace and prices jump on commodities exchanges.

In the U.S. George Bush announced subsidies for bio-fuels not once but twice in State of the Union addresses.

And while he talked about switchgrass and other waste material based biomass, no funding opportunities have been created to subsidize this.

Instead bio-fuel announcements have fed the monopoly agribusiness oligopolies like ADM, who specialize in corn and wheat based ethanol production.

In Canada part of the Governments Green Plan and its efforts to undermine the Wheat Board was to announce subsidies for ethanol production.

While the only existing wheat straw based bio-fuel company in the world with new technology, remember that new technology that the government talks about is going to solve the global warming crisis, can't find anywhere to pedal its technology in Canada and is looking for investors. Just as its American counterparts are.

Meanwhile in Mexico tortilla prices have skyrocketed on ethanol speculation as corn is transformed from a basic food stuff into a fuel for financial speculation.

In Canada and the United States the increase in corn speculation has led to higher costs for pig farmers.

Bio-fuels are not a green solution, in fact they are not ecological at all, but a way to subsidize big Agribusiness like ADM and the financial markets. The only green about them is greenbacks.

And their impact on climate change and global warming will be minimal since they only blend with existing fossil fuels not replace their use.

Last year Mexico had the largest corn harvest in its history – more than twice as much as in 1980. Yet the price of tortillas has doubled and in some regions tripled over the past few months.

Corn is a key ingredient in poultry feed because of its high energy yield and increasing demand for ethanol has nearly doubled the price of corn over the past year. Corn futures on the Chicago Board of Trade traded in the $2.20-per-bushel range one year ago; now they go for over $4.00. Corn is also an important component in hog feed. However, Hormel was able to keep costs in check in this area because it uses outside farmers to raise hogs, unlike its turkey operations, which are in-house. This deflected some of the higher costs to the contractors, explained Agnese

An explosion in U.S. production of corn-based ethanol has strained supplies of the grain for human and animal consumption. Making ethanol from inedible feedstocks such as bagasse, grasses, and agricultural waste could be a better way, but commercial success has been elusive despite years of efforts.

In fact, in the fall of 1998, Celunol, then called BC International, announced plans to build a cellulosic ethanol plant in Jennings with Department of Energy assistance. The plant was never built, a spokesman says, because the company wasn't able to secure the rest of the financing.

Today, Celunol has competition in the race to build the first cellulosic ethanol plant. The enzymes company Iogen operates a small wheat-straw-based facility in Canada and is scouting locations for a larger plant.

Kansas became America’s top wheat grower, regularly producing close to one-fifth of the country’s total harvest. With their sheaves of wheat, called shocks, stacked upright everywhere in the fields to dry, wheat became so ingrained in the Kansas mind-set that Wichita State University adopted the name Shockers for its mascot.

But in the last two decades, farmers have increasingly turned to corn and soybeans, which need nearly twice as much water.

“That part of the state is going to be out of water in about 25 years at the current rate of consumption,” said Mike Hayden, the secretary of the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks and a former Kansas governor.

See

Real Costs of Bio-Fuels

Conrad Black and ADM

Bio Fuels = Eco Disaster

GMO News Roundup

BioFuel and The Wheat Board

The Ethanol Scam: ADM and Brian Mulroney

ADM

Wheat Board

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Bio Fuels = Eco Disaster

The production of biofuels, long a cornerstone of the quest for greener energy, may sometimes create more harmful emissions than fossil fuels, scientific studies are finding.

Says the NYTimes in an article on Palm Oil. Once a Dream Fuel, Palm Oil May Be an Eco-Nightmare

As I have blogged here, Palm Oil production is creating an eco disaster in Indonesia and Malaysia with wildfires and threats to the endangered Organutan population.

And with both the Bush and Harper regimes promoting biofuels in grains and corn the result is increasing prices for these commodities which adversely affect other farm commodities like pork.

The Chair of Manitoba Pork Council says swine producers on the two sides of the Canada U.S. border share a common concern over rapidly rising feed prices resulting from expanded ethanol production.

And this is why the Harpocrites want to open the market up to the big Agribusiness giants like ADM and Cargill who also produce soya, palm oil, etc. But to do that they must eliminate the Wheat Board.

Biofuels are not ecologically sound alternatives to petroleum, they are just another capitalist band-aid, like Kyoto with its carbon exchange marketing.

Capitalism can only offer 'profit based' ways of adjusting to the current ecological and environmental crisis we face. That is because this crisis is about capitalism, which is not sustainable.

That is the real problem of Green Capitalism and all the so called Green alternatives, they are not alternatives at all, merely attempts to ameliorate the worst excesses of capitalism.

Without the development of democratic self managed (worker community control) socialism, capitalism Green or otherwise will continue to lead to planetary entropy.


See

GMO News Roundup

Lost and Found

Boreno is Burning

Bio-Fuels


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I Fear For Democracy

Gee I thought the Conservatives represented all the Western Farmers.....

Ken Larsen, a grain farmer from central Alberta, said he thinks farmers will be the big losers if the wheat board collapses.

"I think if we lose the wheat board, we're going to lose a lot of income," said Larsen, who held up a pro-wheat board placard.

"I don't like the way (federal Agriculture Minister) Chuck Strahl has put forward such a manipulative and dishonest question on the barley plebiscite."

Stewart Wells, president of the National Farmers Union, got a loud ovation at the rally as he accused the federal Conservatives of being underhanded in their attempt to end the wheat board's marketing monopoly.

"We've had this endless stream of dirty tricks and manipulation and the gag orders and the firings," Wells told the cheering crowd. "For the first time in my life, I'm actually afraid for democracy in this country."

But then there is always a silver lining.....

Stephen Harper's Conservatives are going to lose farm votes on the Prairies over their ideologically driven assault on the Canadian Wheat Board, says fired Wheat Board boss Adrian Measner.

Measner told reporters yesterday that the Harper minority government will pay for its campaign to end the board's monopoly when it goes to the polls.

"I have talked to a lot of farmers who say they are unhappy with what has happened," he said. "They voted Conservative in the last election, but won't in the next election."

Meanwhile the Harpocrites have failed to pay their own CWB CEO appointee his salary.

THE Canadian Wheat Board will pay its new chief executive officer just as soon as the Harper government enters discussions on what the president's salary should be, says a Manitoba farm leader.

"I think (Agriculture Minister Chuck) Strahl has led people to believe we're unwilling to pay our CEO, which is not true," said Bill Toews, one of two farmer-elected board members from Manitoba.

New wheat board CEO Greg Arason has not been paid in five weeks, ever since Strahl fired Adrian Measner and appointed Arason without consulting the board.

Hey Bill Toews wouldn't be related to Vic Toews would he?

And he is right Chuck is saying it ain't his fault. And who do you think he blames? Why the Wheat Board Directors of course.

The Wheat Board is the Tories favorite scapegoat. Not because the Harpocrties represent farmers, far from,it because they represent a small political special interest group and lobbyists for big agribusiness.

And because of these old Reform Party alliances they will continue to engage in this partisan attack on the Wheat Board despite the fact it makes money for the majority of farmers and is important in maintaining Canada's grain sovereignty in the world market.China wants Canadian Wheat Board to stay

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Wheat Board

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