U.S is happy with Wheatboard downfall
- Thread starter Researcher87
- Start date
The Board and the Coperatives were developed during the Great Depression to manage food supplies for the long term interests of farmers and consumers.. with great success.
Only a dumb little fart like Stephen Harper believes that the ravenous greed and power lust of the beast that controls 'the invisible hand' of the Free Market is superior to that of the reason of effective management in something as critical as food supply.
We knew what we were getting when we elected him. A Quisling, a weakling who cowers on his knees before his masters in the 'Illuminati' of the American government and Global Trading and Financial Oligarchy.
Everything Harper done can be overturned.. and Canada's sovereingty and economic integrity re-established. But it will never be done by this pathetic, wretched little pawn. And nothing will stop him from disassembling what is left of the Canadian economy unless he turned out of office.
Only a dumb little fart like Stephen Harper believes that the ravenous greed and power lust of the beast that controls 'the invisible hand' of the Free Market is superior to that of the reason of effective management in something as critical as food supply.
We knew what we were getting when we elected him. A Quisling, a weakling who cowers on his knees before his masters in the 'Illuminati' of the American government and Global Trading and Financial Oligarchy.
Everything Harper done can be overturned.. and Canada's sovereingty and economic integrity re-established. But it will never be done by this pathetic, wretched little pawn. And nothing will stop him from disassembling what is left of the Canadian economy unless he turned out of office.
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The wheat board was a necessity for getting grain to offshore markets on a Crown owned rail company through producer owned and run pool ports and like all Crowns and co-ops run down and undermaintained.
In August 2012, Harper announced that the Conservative government had officially dismantled the Canadian Wheat Board, a federal agency that brokered export deals for barley and wheat farmers. He also made the surprise announcement that he was unsheathing “an ancient power” to pardon a group of farmers who had, as Harper said, simply been protesting the monopolistic nature of the Wheat Board.
“These people were not criminals,” Harper said.
Some members of Farmers for Justice, as the small group called itself, were charged under the Customs Act for trying to bring their grain to the United States illegally. Some spent time in jail for refusing to pay the resulting fines.
The government would later say that it had granted the farmers an “ordinary pardon,” a rarely used form of clemency under the Royal Prerogative for Mercy.
At the time of the announcement, tens of thousands of traditional pardon requests sat unanswered in a backlog of the Conservative government’s own creation.
The pardoned farmers couldn’t all be identified at the time because of privacy laws. Recently, the Parole Board of Canada revealed that 10 farmers received pardons. The farmers who came forward on their own accord, though, expressed immense relief at having their records sealed.
But questions lingered about the way in which the government went about granting the pardons.
Now, for the first time, documents obtained by BuzzFeed Canada show the prime minister’s hand in having the farmers pardoned, and how some officials — including the public safety minister — pushed back.
The law states that anyone who wants a pardon — now called a record suspension — must apply to the Parole Board of Canada and pay a $631 fee.
Clemency is more typically used to clear the records of those who were wrongly convicted. But in very rare cases, the governor general, on recommendation of the public safety minister, can grant it to deserving applicants who’ve exhausted all other legal remedies.
The farmers had applied for neither a record suspension nor clemency. Political offices approached them, asking if they wanted it.
One high-level bureaucrat involved in the pardons told BuzzFeed Canada that the process blurred the lines between public service and politics.
“I found it very distressing,” said Mary Campbell, who retired as director general of corrections and criminal justice in 2013.
Campbell said it pushed her to leave Public Safety Canada after serving for nearly three decades.
Hundreds of emails and documents obtained through access to information laws show bureaucrats from at least seven government departments and agencies struggled to make the pardons happen while battling a void of information, multiple legal hurdles, and political pressure to have it done before the prime minister’s announcement.
This is an inside look at the messy, politicized process that led to the pardons.
more
http://www.buzzfeed.com/emmaloop/inside-story-of-harpers-farmer-pardons#.ikaKP3Kb16
“These people were not criminals,” Harper said.
Some members of Farmers for Justice, as the small group called itself, were charged under the Customs Act for trying to bring their grain to the United States illegally. Some spent time in jail for refusing to pay the resulting fines.
The government would later say that it had granted the farmers an “ordinary pardon,” a rarely used form of clemency under the Royal Prerogative for Mercy.
At the time of the announcement, tens of thousands of traditional pardon requests sat unanswered in a backlog of the Conservative government’s own creation.
The pardoned farmers couldn’t all be identified at the time because of privacy laws. Recently, the Parole Board of Canada revealed that 10 farmers received pardons. The farmers who came forward on their own accord, though, expressed immense relief at having their records sealed.
But questions lingered about the way in which the government went about granting the pardons.
Now, for the first time, documents obtained by BuzzFeed Canada show the prime minister’s hand in having the farmers pardoned, and how some officials — including the public safety minister — pushed back.
The law states that anyone who wants a pardon — now called a record suspension — must apply to the Parole Board of Canada and pay a $631 fee.
Clemency is more typically used to clear the records of those who were wrongly convicted. But in very rare cases, the governor general, on recommendation of the public safety minister, can grant it to deserving applicants who’ve exhausted all other legal remedies.
The farmers had applied for neither a record suspension nor clemency. Political offices approached them, asking if they wanted it.
One high-level bureaucrat involved in the pardons told BuzzFeed Canada that the process blurred the lines between public service and politics.
“I found it very distressing,” said Mary Campbell, who retired as director general of corrections and criminal justice in 2013.
Campbell said it pushed her to leave Public Safety Canada after serving for nearly three decades.
Hundreds of emails and documents obtained through access to information laws show bureaucrats from at least seven government departments and agencies struggled to make the pardons happen while battling a void of information, multiple legal hurdles, and political pressure to have it done before the prime minister’s announcement.
This is an inside look at the messy, politicized process that led to the pardons.
more
http://www.buzzfeed.com/emmaloop/inside-story-of-harpers-farmer-pardons#.ikaKP3Kb16
The Canadian Wheat Board (CWB) won’t be restored under the new Liberal government, but farmers could finally see its books, kept secret since the government removed its marketing monopoly in 2012.
“A number of farmers have raised the question and said the numbers just don’t add up,” Saskatchewan MP and former agriculture minister Ralph Goodale said in an interview last week.
“Once we have a chance to examine the information that’s available internally maybe we will be able to shed some light for farmers on just exactly what transpired. What values were involved, what money changed hands, how the assets were valued and how it came about that Bunge and Saudi Arabia are now effectively the owners of what used to be the wheat board.
“It appears to have been a gift. But until we have a chance to view the internal information it’s just impossible to fully assess what has gone on here. You can imagine why some farmers are curious.”
In July G3 Global Grain Group, a joint venture of Bunge and state-owned Saudi Agricultural Livestock Investment Company (SALIC), ostensibly bought CWB for $250.5 million. However, the newly formed company kept the money instead of paying the Canadian government, which owned CWB. While the transaction raised eyebrows among some Canadian grain company executives and was criticized by several farm groups, Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz defended it saying it made for a stronger new company.
Friends of the Canadian Wheat Board, which is suing the government, alleges CWB assets belonged to farmers. It wants to see the wheat board’s financial statements.
Canada’s agriculture minister is obliged to present the wheat board’s annual report to Parliament — something Ritz said he did.
However, what was made public revealed almost nothing. Ritz said he was permitted to keep sensitive information private.
“For all of the complaints about the old wheat board it was far more transparent than the new entity has ever been,” Goodale said.
“And now that the remains are in the hands of a foreign corporation and a foreign government you’ll never be able to have the complete story.”
Sale of Wheat Board to be scrutinized by Liberal government
“A number of farmers have raised the question and said the numbers just don’t add up,” Saskatchewan MP and former agriculture minister Ralph Goodale said in an interview last week.
“Once we have a chance to examine the information that’s available internally maybe we will be able to shed some light for farmers on just exactly what transpired. What values were involved, what money changed hands, how the assets were valued and how it came about that Bunge and Saudi Arabia are now effectively the owners of what used to be the wheat board.
“It appears to have been a gift. But until we have a chance to view the internal information it’s just impossible to fully assess what has gone on here. You can imagine why some farmers are curious.”
In July G3 Global Grain Group, a joint venture of Bunge and state-owned Saudi Agricultural Livestock Investment Company (SALIC), ostensibly bought CWB for $250.5 million. However, the newly formed company kept the money instead of paying the Canadian government, which owned CWB. While the transaction raised eyebrows among some Canadian grain company executives and was criticized by several farm groups, Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz defended it saying it made for a stronger new company.
Friends of the Canadian Wheat Board, which is suing the government, alleges CWB assets belonged to farmers. It wants to see the wheat board’s financial statements.
Canada’s agriculture minister is obliged to present the wheat board’s annual report to Parliament — something Ritz said he did.
However, what was made public revealed almost nothing. Ritz said he was permitted to keep sensitive information private.
“For all of the complaints about the old wheat board it was far more transparent than the new entity has ever been,” Goodale said.
“And now that the remains are in the hands of a foreign corporation and a foreign government you’ll never be able to have the complete story.”
Sale of Wheat Board to be scrutinized by Liberal government
The CWB monopoly five years ago this week, but grain farmer Stewart Wells isn’t celebrating the anniversary.
The board, set up in 1935, was the sole organization allowed to buy and export western Canadian wheat and barley until former prime minister Stephen Harper’s government eliminated the “single desk” and opened the system to competition on Aug. 1, 2012, a time Harper called “grain marketing freedom day.”
The government sold the Crown corporation in 2015 to G3 Global Grain Group, owned by Saudi Arabia and a U.S. grain trader.
For some in the industry, the end of the wheat board was a victory in an emotional fight to increase profitability and efficiency — some farmers went to jail in the 1990s for taking their grain across the border to sell illegally in the U.S.
But Wells, a former wheat board director who chairs the Friends of the Canadian Wheat Board, sees the government action as a hammer blow that continues to hurt the average producer.
“There’s no question it’s the single biggest transfer of wealth away from farmers over to the grain trade in the 150-year history of this country,” said Wells, who works 2,500 acres near Swift Current, Sask.
“It’s amounted to billions of dollars every year since 2012.”
Most members in a wheat board plebiscite voted to keep the monopoly, a result the government dismissed.
A 2015 study by University of Saskatchewan agricultural economist Richard Gray concluded insufficient capacity in the grain handling and transportation system during the big 2013-14 and 2014-15 crop years cut producer incomes between $5 billion and $6.7 billion.
Mohammad Torshizi, a grain transportation specialist at the University of Alberta’s faculty of agricultural, life and environmental sciences, said the impact would have been smaller under the wheat board because farmers wouldn’t have rushed to sell before prices became even worse.
He doesn’t have a clear answer to whether eliminating the wheat board was a good idea — farmers adept at the complexities of selling grain, or close to elevators or the U.S. market, tend to like the move, while more isolated operators or people less likely to peddle their product are often unsupportive.
“From the perspective of voicing farmers’ concerns, the wheat board helped. They showed up in times of crisis, but in general I can also tell you a lot of farmers are happy because they have the freedom to market their grain as they want. It’s difficult to put a price on people’s freedom.”
In theory, major firms such as Richardson International and Glencore compete with each other to buy grain from farmers, but in reality most growers have little choice about where they can sell because the number of nearby elevators is limited, Wells says.
The companies don’t have to accept deliveries as they did under the wheat board, and new infrastructure they’re building will ultimately be funded through the expenses they charge farmers, he said.
“The whole system has switched to … where all the market power rests with the grain companies.”
more
Industry chafed five years after end of Canadian Wheat Board monopoly | Edmonton Journal
The board, set up in 1935, was the sole organization allowed to buy and export western Canadian wheat and barley until former prime minister Stephen Harper’s government eliminated the “single desk” and opened the system to competition on Aug. 1, 2012, a time Harper called “grain marketing freedom day.”
The government sold the Crown corporation in 2015 to G3 Global Grain Group, owned by Saudi Arabia and a U.S. grain trader.
For some in the industry, the end of the wheat board was a victory in an emotional fight to increase profitability and efficiency — some farmers went to jail in the 1990s for taking their grain across the border to sell illegally in the U.S.
But Wells, a former wheat board director who chairs the Friends of the Canadian Wheat Board, sees the government action as a hammer blow that continues to hurt the average producer.
“There’s no question it’s the single biggest transfer of wealth away from farmers over to the grain trade in the 150-year history of this country,” said Wells, who works 2,500 acres near Swift Current, Sask.
“It’s amounted to billions of dollars every year since 2012.”
Most members in a wheat board plebiscite voted to keep the monopoly, a result the government dismissed.
A 2015 study by University of Saskatchewan agricultural economist Richard Gray concluded insufficient capacity in the grain handling and transportation system during the big 2013-14 and 2014-15 crop years cut producer incomes between $5 billion and $6.7 billion.
Mohammad Torshizi, a grain transportation specialist at the University of Alberta’s faculty of agricultural, life and environmental sciences, said the impact would have been smaller under the wheat board because farmers wouldn’t have rushed to sell before prices became even worse.
He doesn’t have a clear answer to whether eliminating the wheat board was a good idea — farmers adept at the complexities of selling grain, or close to elevators or the U.S. market, tend to like the move, while more isolated operators or people less likely to peddle their product are often unsupportive.
“From the perspective of voicing farmers’ concerns, the wheat board helped. They showed up in times of crisis, but in general I can also tell you a lot of farmers are happy because they have the freedom to market their grain as they want. It’s difficult to put a price on people’s freedom.”
In theory, major firms such as Richardson International and Glencore compete with each other to buy grain from farmers, but in reality most growers have little choice about where they can sell because the number of nearby elevators is limited, Wells says.
The companies don’t have to accept deliveries as they did under the wheat board, and new infrastructure they’re building will ultimately be funded through the expenses they charge farmers, he said.
“The whole system has switched to … where all the market power rests with the grain companies.”
more
Industry chafed five years after end of Canadian Wheat Board monopoly | Edmonton Journal
