If Prime Minister Harper and his "hatchet man" Gerry Ritz have their way the Canadian Wheat Board (CWB) will be as dead as the pyramids of Egypt.
Fifty years from now, or sooner, when the global grain corporations become the feudal land barons of the day, the great grandchildren of our prairie pioneers will wonder, "Whatever were Canadians thinking, when they voted for a political party that extinguished the CWB, an organization controlled by democratically elected representatives of family farm operators?"
Agriculture was once a lifestyle that allowed farm families to make a living from the land. Bill C-18 is designed to generate greater profits for global corporations.
A longtime friend of mine, Jake Bendel, from around the Humboldt area, spent a good deal of his remaining days helping farm families in financial trouble during the high interest crisis in the 1980s. He placed a plywood sign on the back of his truck painted in large letters. "Better to have your neighbour, than your neighbour's farm."
Loss of the CWB will greatly facilitate rural depopulation. Global grain corporations and the Harper government are delighted.
This Conservative government is handing over the sale of prairie producers' wheat and barley exports to global grain corporations. Government members gleefully boast, and constantly remind opposition members and Canadian voters that they have a majority. In reality it is a majority by a minority of voters. Truly Canadian, eh?
