Plebiscite fair way to settle CWB issue

Note: This letter was published in the November 29th edition of the Lethbridge Herald.  The Herald did not publish the letter in its online edition for reasons of their own.

Editor:

In his letter about the CWB of, November 20, Jim Hillyer is technically correct that Parliament has the right to overturn legislation put in place by previous governments.

However, governments also have an obligation to seriously consider the effects of overturning previous legislation and of introducing new legislation. This is why there are debates in the Parliament and, usually, extensive committee hearings. But the Conservatives are using closure to shut down debate and to limit severely the time available for the agricultural committee to hear witnesses. Furthermore, the legislation they're introducing is coming at a time when farmers are busy harvesting crops. The Canadian Wheat Board Act required a plebiscite to determine if the majority of wheat farmers agree with the move. Yes, it is technically legitimate to rescind this old legislation, but it definitely violates the spirit of the old law and, more importantly, the spirit of fairness. Why not hold hearings throughout the prairies? Independent experts (e.g., agricultural economist Murray Fulton) have stated that the CWB cannot survive without its single desk (See The Canadian Wheat Board in an Open Market: The Impact of Removing the Single-Desk Selling Powers ). Why not ask the farmers and see if they agree with Fulton or with Harper?

It's hard to argue against the phrases, "Marketing Freedom" and "Freedom of Choice." But if a group, very likely a majority group, chooses one approach to marketing, a change to that approach should, at the very least, include consulting with that group, particularly if it's a major and irreversible change.

A group of farmers have, in the past 12 years, chosen repeatedly to keep the CWB in its present form by repeatedly electing farmer directors of the Board who support the CWB's monopoly. Indeed, some directors who were elected on a dual desk platform, when they learned about the advantages brought about by the single desk, changed their mind.

Recently the Globe published an obituary for Ken Ritter, former chair of the CWB. Mr. Ritter, a Conservative, was one of the ones who changed his mind from supporting dual desk to the single desk.

Mr. Hillyer mentions a small group of farmers, but it's a small group that are the ones who want to dispose of the CWB in its current form and who are in the minority. No one can know for sure, unless there's a fair plebiscite of those affected. Why are you and your party so afraid of doing this, Mr. Hillyer?  

Mark Sandilands  

Survey's 'majority' doesn't add up

TUESDAY, 15 NOVEMBER 2011 02:01 LETTER TO THE EDITOR Re: "Municipal taxes too high: survey" (Lethbridge Herald, Nov. 8, page A1). It's interesting to see that 49.9 per cent is labelled "a majority." There's a common phrase: "There are lies, damned lies, and statistics." However, it's not the statistics - the numbers - that lie, it's the interpretation of them that can be misleading. The research quoted in the article found that 15.8 per cent of the respondents think their taxes are far too high and 34.1 per cent believe taxes are somewhat too high. Adding these two together, a common and legitimate practice in interpreting survey data, gives the 49.9 per cent figure. But 49.9 per cent is not a majority. Just ask the supporters of Quebec separation in 1995. But I digress. If adding response percentages from a survey is a legitimate exercise, let's add some other response percentages. The survey found an almost identical number, 46.4 per cent (almost within the margin of error, I might add), felt that property taxes are at about the right levels in relation to the services received from municipal governments. Also, 3.7 per cent think their taxes are too low. (This is made up by summing 3.4 per cent who think they are somewhat too low and 0.3 per cent who state that they are far too low. Adding these together leads to the conclusion that 3.7 per cent think taxes are too low. Thus we could conclude that 50.1 per cent (46.4 + 3.4 + 0.3) think taxes are about right or (even) too low. This figure, 50.1 per cent, is a majority, by the way. They'd likely object to a cut in services done to reduce taxes. As I said, it's all in the interpretation. When one of several possible interpretations leads to the conclusion that taxes should be lowered, and amplifies it by suggesting that 49.9 per cent is a majority, one wonders why. Just asking.
Mark Sandilands Lethbridge

Okaying Hands Free Cell Phones is the wrong way to go

Editor,

You’d think a government wanting to enact effective legislation would consult with experts in the field and then mostly follow their advice when writing a new law.  Not the government of Alberta!  And not with the new Alberta “distracted driving law.”

This is an example of the half-measures and one-step-forward, two-steps-back that we’ve come to expect from a government that is growing tired and ineffective.

So what would experts say about distracted driving legislation?  One of Canada’s leading experts on this topic is Dr. Louis
Francescutti, an emergency room doctor in Edmonton.  Dr. Francescutti says he’d prefer no law at all than this law, saying it’ll probably kill more people than it will save.

According to Dr. Francescutti, the research shows that using a cellphone while driving increases the risk of collision by four to six times, and it doesn’t matter whether the cell-phone is hand-held or hands-free.  It’s the mind that needs to be engaged, not the hands. The main problem with any cell-phone use while driving is not that both hands are not on the wheel, it’s that the mind is elsewhere, engaged in a conversation.  Unlike a passenger in the vehicle, the person on the other end of the conversation cannot see when difficult driving situations arise and adjust accordingly. A person’s reaction time and peripheral vision are seriously impaired by cell-phone use, making it equivalent to driving with over .08 blood alcohol.

The government has said a ban on hands-free cell phones would be impossible to enforce; however, Dr. Francescutti points out that (a) cell phone companies keep accurate records of when calls are made, down to the second, and (b) recent autos have an event recorder that notes the exact time when an airbag is deployed.  If anyone is in an accident it would not be difficult to subpoena these records to prosecute offenders.  Indeed, anyone who's been injured by a cell-phone using driver should pursue this path in any legal action.

The best policy is when someone calls is to let the phone take the message, pull over, park, and call them back.  For more information, see http://www.cellphonefreedriving.ca/  Too bad the government MLAs didn’t bother to look here.
 ________
Mark Sandilands
Published today in the Lethbridge Herald:
http://www.lethbridgeherald.com/letters-to-the-editor/new-driving-law-ringsthe-wrong-number-91311.html

Rural Canada Relies on the Canadian Wheat Board

In the ongoing debate about the future of the Canadian Wheat Board (CWB), one of the arguments for dismantling it is to allow farmers to find their own markets and presumably a better price for their wheat and barley.
On the surface, independence seems a good thing. However, it brings to mind an analogy: many if not most Canadians own at least some mutual funds, usually in their RRSPs. One could study and become an expert on investing and do the buying and selling that mutual fund managers do on our behalf, but we do have other ways, some useful, to spend our time. So we pay a fee, hopefully a reasonable one, to a mutual fund to do that work for us.
Yes, wheat farmers could track the price of wheat daily and sell their crop to a grain company at just the right time for a really good price.
However, unless they run a really large operation, the larger number, prefer to stick to farming and leave the grain trading to the paid staff at the CWB. The CWB offers a number of advantages to wheat farmers. First is price pooling which protects from abrupt price shifts so that farmers don't have to deliver their wheat exactly when the price peaks.
If the single desk goes, so will the producer car loading sites. Producer cars mean farmers can bypass grain companies' elevators and save themselves $1,200 per hopper car. The producer cars use branchlines and shortline railroads - what will happen to them and the communities along them?
As economist Murray Fulton said, "The . . . loss of the CWB's single-desk . . . would make the Canadian system . . . more like that in the (U.S.) . . . Grain company and railroad competition would fall, . . . the current freight revenue cap would disappear, and less value would be returned to farmers . . . These changes . . . are irreversible."
We can imagine a modern feudal system with farmers at the mercy of multinational corporations who'll decide what to grow and how much to grow.
Farms will have to grow bigger; there'll be fewer small- and medium-farming operations and the loss of small, rural communities with their schools, hospitals, community centres and other services. One could drive through rural Canada and find virtually no inhabitants.
Do Harper and company and their corporate friends care about rural Canada? It seems not.
Mark Sandilands
Lethbridge
Published in the Lethbridge Herald, Sunday, July 17th.  http://www.lethbridgeherald.com/letters-to-the-editor/rural-canada-relieson-cwb-71711.html

Canadian Wheat Board

If you're interested in reading a thorough analysis of the Canadian Wheat Board, here's a start. It's from the Saskatchewan desk of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.

Excerpt:
"Without the Wheat Board, the big grain companies would totally take over. Farmers would just be contract growers, restricted to the company's varieties, their chemicals, their prices and conditions. For transportation rates and service we'd be at the mercy of the railroads, with no representative body strong enough to take them on."

http://www.policyalternatives.ca/publications/reports/sasknotes-harper’s-renewed-attack-canadian-wheat-board

Corporate tax cuts not in best interests of Canadians --letter to the editor of the Lethbridge Herald

Editor,

Even though the election is over, the debate about corporate tax cuts continues, as shown in recent letters to the editor (2011- 04-22, 2011-05-05) and news stories stating Flaherty is set to go ahead with corporate tax cuts. Aside from the fact that there is no clear link between corporate tax cuts and job creation (for example:http://www.policyalternatives.ca/publications/reports/corporate-income-taxes-profit-and-employment-performance-canadas-largest-compa), a serious item has been almost totally ignored in the debate.  Munir Sheikh, former head of Statistics Canada and of tax policy at Finance Canada, pointed out in a Globe and Mail column on April 20th (http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/opinion/a-canada-us-tax-gap-means-a-canada-us-tax-transfer/article1991567/) that USA taxes US corporations on their world-wide income.  If there’s a tax cut elsewhere, such as in Canada, US corporations are required to pay more American tax on their Canadian profits, since the US rate is about twice as high as ours is. This transfer from the Canada treasury to the US treasury amounts to between $4 and $6 billion a year. These missing billions will have to be made up with higher taxes paid by individuals or cuts to services—health care, the environment, food inspectors.
One wonders why the Conservatives plan to go full speed ahead on corporate tax cuts in light of these facts. Cutting taxes is the ideological mantra of conservative governments.  Let’s hope ordinary Canadians tell Mr. Harper and Mr. Flaherty to govern with them in mind, not ideology or the best interests of large corporations.

Reality Check

REALITY CHECK: Will Harper withdraw his made-up ads?

Coming off a week where the Conservatives were pretty testy about misquotes in TV ads, Stephen Harper released ads that were full of made-up stuff.

Here is each attack on Jack Layton in the newly released Conservative ads, and the facts (citations are from the Ads themselves.)

HARPER SAYS: “Layton planned a coalition with the Bloc Quebecois before our votes were even counted (How we Almost Gave the Tories the Boot, Brian Topp, p. 46)”

HE MADE IT UP: The only mention of the Bloc on page 46 is a reference to the number of seats they won: “The campaign went well. We emerged with 37 seats, our second-largest result in our party's history. The Tories won 143 seats; the Liberals 76; the Bloc 48. We finally had a clean balance-of-power position in Parliament. As directed by Layton, I had re-activated our scenarios committee during the course of that 2008 campaign.... We reviewed party election proposals and reached roughly similar conclusions as we did in the 2006 exercise. We could see some areas of common ground with the Conservatives (consumer protection, crime). We could also see somewhat more common ground with the Liberals. On the other hand, we were now going to have to deal with a fundamental policy disagreement with the Liberals, passionately committed as they were to Mr. Ignatieff's tax-shift, carbon-tax plan.” – Brian Topp, How We (Almost) Gave the Tories the Boot, p. 46

HARPER SAYS: “Layton was willing to make Duceppe the “Driving Force” in the Coalition (Toronto Star, October 6, 2010)”

HE MADE IT UP: Full citation: “In a book released this week Duceppe casts himself as the driving force behind the Liberal-NDP coalition agreement.”  – Chantal Hébert, Toronto Star, October 6, 2010

HARPER SAYS: “Layton didn’t tell you until after the election”

HE MADE IT UP: Jack Layton has been clear about his plans to work with other parties to get results for Canadian families.

Seamus O'Regan: Do you believe so strongly in that that you would entertain even the notion of entering a coalition with the liberals in order to keep the conservatives out of power?
Jack Layton: I have worked with any other party. Maybe it goes back to my days on municipal council. You role up your sleeves and you try to solve a problem. Right now the problem we have is Stephen Harper and his Conservatives.”
–Canada AM, September 22 2008 (22 days before the election)

Making stuff up in TV ads is more proof that Ottawa is broken.