” I guess this new paradise must surely exclude Vancouver (my home), Victoria, Nanaimo, western Kootenays, Bulkey Valley, downtown Edmonton, parts of Regina and Saskatoon, and Winnipeg, right? Because a majority of ‘westerners’ in these places voted for the NDP or the Liberals – and have the seats to prove it.”

Talk about hyperbole. In Edmonton there was one NDP eleceted compared to at least 5 conservatives.

I think Premier Ed might be well-considered to call a referendum on separation if the coalition of losers manages to come to power.

My father lives under the rules of the Wheat board. My father’s neighbours live under the Wheat Board. You know people who actually farm for a living, instead of having it as a side job.

So don’t you insult my intelligence. The polling done by left wing governments (such as the much trumpeted Manitoba plebiscite) and the CWB itself does little to convince me that general sentiment in in the farms around my home town is somehow aberrant. There is a reason why my home electoral district used to be called “red square” and isn’t anymore.

The simple fact of the matter is that even if the majority of farmers supported the wheat board, there simply is no justification for a pseudo-governmental organization to force you to sell your property to them. All that does is piss us off, and ensure that you will never get our votes.

I hate you left of center supporters for that attitude that you don’t have to respect our basic property rights because we’re dumb farmers who don’t know our best interests. It makes me shake with anger.

Robert> There is no other way to explain the fact why farmers simply can’t convince the left wing supporters of urban areas about why the Wheat Board is useless and unjust.

They don’t know anything about what influences commodity prices, what the opportunities are for marketing, what the opportunities are for value added local industry, or even what services the wheat board provides.

Yet they presume to tell my father, despite running his own farm for over 40 years that he just doesn’t know enough to realize that the wheat board monopoly is good for farmers.

So if it isn’t class based condescension, what is it?

Terry – Honestly, I think now we’re getting to the crux of the whole issue, particularly in western Canada.

I don’t pretend to know enough about farmers’ politics to weigh in decisively on what they think about the Wheat Board – any evidence I can glean is largely inconclusive – but I think your comments highlight (even if inadvertently) that there is a noticeable and increasing divide between many citizens of this country in core urban and rural/suburban/small town communities.

That, to me, is where the faultlines are most compelling, politically-speaking. This talk about ‘western alienation’ belies the fact that westerners in large cities (particularly in BC and Manitoba) tend to vote, as a majority, with parties other than the Conservatives (Calgary, in particular, excluded). More importantly, it belies the fact the trend is similar elsewhere in the country.

In Ontario, for instance, people in Central/Southwestern/Eastern Ontario (i.e the province’s rural heartland) are voting Conservative in numbers that are not significantly different from people in southern Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and Central/Eastern/Northwestern British Columbia. Similarly, people in small cities/suburban communities in Ontario (the 905 region surrounding Toronto, Kitchener/Waterloo/Cambridge, etc.) are voting for the Conservatives, just like people in small cities/suburban communities in BC, Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba.

The trend holds roughly throughout the Atlantic provinces, too.

The only reason this all gets made into such a ‘regional’ issue, particularly out West, is because the aforementioned cities in Ontario have such a significant proportion of the population vis-a-vis the rest of the country. This invariably skews the representation of parties (the NDP and Liberals) that tend to be supported in higher numbers in these areas across the country precisely because the population concentrated in urban Ontario dictates that it gets more seats.

Make no mistake though, these parties are well supported in cities throughout the country. Much like the Conservatives are in rural/suburban/small town communities throughout the country.

Shenping> I think you are almost there on the traditional grievances that western farmers have with the NDP and the Liberals, though you are wrong on the specifics. I would hardly call 1995-1996 late in Jean Chretien’s tenure for example. But you have actually taken the time to learn and listen, and understand that there is a reason for widespread anger in rural areas towards the parties of the left for policies they implemented and refuse to acknowledge did lasting harm. However that was in the past. The farmers who largely supported the left also largely dried up because they couldn’t adjust to running a business independently. Those that couldn’t do without the subsidies and market their own grain with the modern tools available are gone now. That’s why 20+ quarter sections are the norm now, and anyone who has less than 7 or 8 quarters simply isn’t making a living at it. They still get to vote though on whether the Wheat Board should be mandatory, even if they are making their living as teachers… or are dead, or are Wheat Board Employees, or haven’t farmed a crop in almost a decade. The CWB has been making some half-hearted efforts to look like their implementing reforms, but it is hard to make them do so when they haven’t got to compete for our business. If we don’t like the way they are managing our affairs, or they can’t change to cope with modern realities, we can’t vote with our feet. The state ensures that we must obey, or they will fine us, seize our equipment, and if necessary throw us in jail for contempt. This is the reason the Wheat Board hasn’t been able to adapt and develop a system that can adequately handle organic farming, an issue of concern for over 20 years.

The Wheat Board occasionally does provide higher prices than the Americans, but just as often it provides lower prices. It all depends on who is buying, who is selling, what the crop conditions are in various countries, and of course the price of corn which drives all the other commodities. The Wheat Board does not pay above market rate for crops and neither does the Wheat Board command enough of a monopoly on world wheat markets to influence world prices. Sure the Wheat Board will claim to have “specific customers with relationships developed over time” which makes their market share larger than it would appear. However, what they don’t tell you is that their specific customers are largely just the few multinationals that ship it for export.

Remember the Crow Rate you mentioned that killed any chance of value-added development on the prairies? Well business still continues on as usual, with the CWB selling to multinationals only the farmers pay for it instead of the government. Since the farmers pay the shipping, there is no incentive for either the CWB or the multinationals to change, so there is no local value added industry. If value added industry were to be created, it would have to be started by Co-op’s or farmer founded corporations. However, any competitive edge these farmer-run interests would have is cut off at the knees because you have to sell your own crop to the CWB and then buy it back again. So there is lots of smaller industries trading in all sorts of commodities on the prairies, but Wheat remains an export crop.

Any advantage the Wheat Board gives as a monopoly serves primarily the interests of the Board itself, not the farmers who it is supposed to serve. That is why it is the stumbling block for two of the emergent market trends of organic food and local food. That is because it doesn’t have to listen, it doesn’t have to reform its electoral process, it doesn’t have to change and grow to keep the business of farmers. The state will always be there with the fist.

As for both you and Robert, yeah I understand that rural and urban areas have different interests. Rural areas have a larger number of self-employed people who produce resources, and urban areas are made up of wage earning professionals who consume them. But I don’t think anyone is served by the CWB, either consumer or producer. I am btw, one of those urban wage-earning professionals and trust me, it is much easier and less stressful to achieve a decent standard of living that way than through farming. I had the student loans and I’m still not earning a great deal of money, but as long as I live within my means the state coddles me. I don’t have my own house yet, I don’t have a new car, but I can pretty much expect to live fairly well on an 8 hour day (plus overtime in these days of course).

I would never have the time to blow on commenting on blogs if I was in my father’s line of work, and the debt load I would have to take on to revitalize his farm which is winding down just wouldn’t be worth it for the standard of living I’m going to accrue. That’s what urban professionals who don’t own their own businesses seem to not understand. For every dollar you spend outside of your business (tax or personal) is a dollar you can’t use to reinvest and grow your business. If you don’t replace your equipment, buy more land, buy more expertise, change methods of farming… your farm will shrivel up and die.

The CWB neither serves the producer nor the consumer. The farmer does not achieve a higher price for wheat and malt barley, and he is denied access on those two commodities to both local markets and markets outside of the CWB’s “preferred customers”. The consumer doesn’t benefit, because he doesn’t get a better product or a cheaper product and the CWB is a stumbling block to achieving either.

What is frustrating is that there is no way to get free of the CWB except through a Conservative majority. It makes one feel so helpless then to have your arguments and concerns thrown back in your face and derided as evil to boot. But I guess it is true that the powerful don’t know the powerless, and the powerless understand the powerful intimately.

A plethora of pale portly reformers parading around parliament hill pointing out the plight they are in. What an image! Your complaints about regional representation can be made (with more validity) by other areas of the country today. Harper is a reform/aliant wolf in conservative clothing. Moderate conservatives are blinded by the Tory and will vote for the marketing strategy that is the federal Conservatives. There are no PC’s left anymore. They have sold their soul to the devil to get a grip on political power and are unable to think of anything else. Least among their worries if the fate of the country under the leadership of one of the most partisan, hypocritical, and devisive PM’s this country has ever seen.