Kill the wheat board

[madmax]

I wonder who was behind this one.

Mark has been the only Conservative MP with the good sense to stand up for the preservation of the wheat board,” said Atamanenko. “So I can only imagine his constituents surprise when they got a mailing from their MP that included an attack on the CWB as part of a campaign to ensure Conservative Minister of Agriculture Chuck Strahl’s view wins the barley plebiscite.”

According to a Winnipeg Free Press article, the seven-page attack mail prepared by the anti-CWB group Market Choice Alliance read "We can not win the fight for freedom of choice without your help. We ask that you be a leader in your communities and rally your fellow farmers, tell them how that choice is theirs (sic) and that this vote is their voice -- use it for choice."

Mark has had to issue a counter mailing to explain to his constituents that he did not order the anti-CWB mailing.

[blueblood]

I wonder who was behind this one.

Mark has been the only Conservative MP with the good sense to stand up for the preservation of the wheat board,” said Atamanenko. “So I can only imagine his constituents surprise when they got a mailing from their MP that included an attack on the CWB as part of a campaign to ensure Conservative Minister of Agriculture Chuck Strahl’s view wins the barley plebiscite.”

According to a Winnipeg Free Press article, the seven-page attack mail prepared by the anti-CWB group Market Choice Alliance read "We can not win the fight for freedom of choice without your help. We ask that you be a leader in your communities and rally your fellow farmers, tell them how that choice is theirs (sic) and that this vote is their voice -- use it for choice."

Mark has had to issue a counter mailing to explain to his constituents that he did not order the anti-CWB mailing.

Good old Inky, my boy. The board has a purpose, just not the one it has now.

[Mad_Michael]

Being born and raised in Toronto, if there is one political issue that is totally off the media radar here, it has to be the Canadian Wheat Board! On this basis, if anyone would care to give me a brief summary of the present political situation regarding the CWB, I'd really appreciate it.

For example, which of the parties tend to favour/support it, or who doesn't like it and who perhaps might want to get rid of it or reform it? And is the issue of the CWB very significant or important out there in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta? Or is it a sacred cow or 'third rail' type issue?

(I am generally familiar with the CWB and how it works and what it generally does, so I'm not looking for an explanation of that stuff - rather the politics of it all)

I'm curious.

[jdobbin]

Good old Inky, my boy. The board has a purpose, just not the one it has now.

I'm pretty sure the Board will be illegal if it loses the monopoly on wheat and barley. The WTO is pretty clear on state enterprises and under what circumstances they can operate under.

[madmax]

Good old Inky, my boy. The board has a purpose, just not the one it has now.

He has won alot of elections under different circumstances. Regardless, someone misused his office.

BTW

Are you able to vote on Barley or just wheat?

[blueblood]

Good old Inky, my boy. The board has a purpose, just not the one it has now.

He has won alot of elections under different circumstances. Regardless, someone misused his office.

BTW

Are you able to vote on Barley or just wheat?

Right now just barley.

I wouldn't worry about cheap political gains like someone misusing his office, the NDP + Liberals combined vote only amounted to half of his total votes. He flat out smoked them in the election.

[BubberMiley]

Inky is a bit of a renegade though who left the Alliance to join the DRC in the depths of the Day debacle. He was the only DRC member to not rejoin the party when Harper took over leadership too. I wouldn't be surprised to see another independent MP out of this.

[blueblood]

Inky is a bit of a renegade though who left the Alliance to join the DRC in the depths of the Day debacle. He was the only DRC member to not rejoin the party when Harper took over leadership too. I wouldn't be surprised to see another independent MP out of this.

I'm pretty sure he went over to the PC's

[Topaz]

Inky is a bit of a renegade though who left the Alliance to join the DRC in the depths of the Day debacle. He was the only DRC member to not rejoin the party when Harper took over leadership too. I wouldn't be surprised to see another independent MP out of this.

I'm pretty sure he went over to the PC's

I look at it this way, if the government get its way on the CWB, I think there's going to be alot of families very peeved off and so they will show how much when the eletion comes no matter how soon or late it is!

[Saturn]

I look at it this way, if the government get its way on the CWB, I think there's going to be alot of families very peeved off and so they will show how much when the eletion comes no matter how soon or late it is!

The government won't have time to finish the CWB off before the next election. Besides those families won't be peeved off until few years down the road. Right now they believe they can negotiate better prices for their product than the CWB can and they are more concerned about gay marriage.

[blueblood]

I look at it this way, if the government get its way on the CWB, I think there's going to be alot of families very peeved off and so they will show how much when the eletion comes no matter how soon or late it is!

The government won't have time to finish the CWB off before the next election. Besides those families won't be peeved off until few years down the road. Right now they believe they can negotiate better prices for their product than the CWB can and they are more concerned about gay marriage.

Inky is my MP, gay marriage is not a big priority in my riding, sure the evangelicals are all about it but, they're evangelicals and not to be taken seriously. He's definetely a populist, and as a whole we're pretty happy with him hence his HUGE landslide wins. Well the thing is Canola isn't part of the CWB jurisdiction and people can market it fine. I personally believe that with the high amount of support the CWB has, if the gov't opened up the market like it wants, the amount of support it has won't really affect it. Most of the small guys which the CWB helps the most are very old, so that's sort of redundant. Don't worry the biofuel thing is really helping things out. The GST thing really helps out here (the GST on farm inputs is mind boggling), the child care thing is very popular, tough stance on crime very popular, the lower tax ideology of the tories is also popular.

[madmax]

Inky is a bit of a renegade though who left the Alliance to join the DRC in the depths of the Day debacle. He was the only DRC member to not rejoin the party when Harper took over leadership too. I wouldn't be surprised to see another independent MP out of this.

I'm pretty sure he went over to the PC's

According to Wiki ...... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inky_Mark

He was first elected to the House of Commons in the federal election of 1997, running as a candidate of the Reform Party in the riding of Dauphin-Swan River. He received 12668 votes, against 7716 for his nearest competitor, Progressive Conservative Lorne Boguski. The incumbent, Liberal Marlene Cowling, finished fourth with 7408 votes. From 1997 to 2000, Mark was one of only three Chinese-Canadian MPs in the House of Commons (the other two were Liberal: Raymond Chan and Sophia Leung).

The Reform Party dissolved itself in 2000 in favour of the Canadian Alliance, and Mark ran as a candidate of the new party in the general election which followed. He was easily re-elected, defeating his nearest competitor, Liberal Jane Dawson, by a margin of 15855 votes to 7091.

Mark's career followed an unusual trajectory between 2001 and 2004. As the Alliance's parliamentary critic for Immigration, Mark was responsible for expressing his party's position on the Liberal government's Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, which he did on a number of occasions in the spring and summer months of 2001. He also contributed to the parliamentary committee's work in drafting the final version of the bill, and was generally regarded by MPs from all parties as having made several constructive criticisms to the legislation.

On June 13, 2001, however, Mark's position on the bill was undercut by Canadian Alliance leader Stockwell Day, who delivered a speech in parliament supporting tighter restrictions against refugee claimants and reduced opportunities for rejected claimants to appeal to the Refugee Board. Day's comments diverged from Mark's stated position on several particulars, and his speech was regarded as very surprising by many other MPs in the House of Commons. (Liberal MP Steve Mahoney referred to Day's comments as "treachery" towards Mark, for which he was ruled out of order by the Speaker.)

Mark had not previously been among the Canadian Alliance MPs agitating for Day's removal as leader, but following Day's speech he joined a group of party dissidents led by Chuck Strahl and Deborah Grey. On September 12, 2001, Mark left the Canadian Alliance caucus to sit as a member of the Democratic Representative Caucus, in alliance with the Progressive Conservative Party.

The DRC came to an end on April 10, 2002, when Stephen Harper replaced Day as Canadian Alliance leader. Every other member of the DRC requested to be re-admitted to the Alliance; Mark did not join them, but instead decided to sit as an Independent Conservative, with the intention of joining the Progressive Conservative Party at their annual party convention later in the year. Mark formally joined the Progressive Conservatives on August 27, 2002.

You are correct Blueblood, as well as the person whom said he sat as an independent.

[madmax]

Inky is my MP, gay marriage is not a big priority in my riding, sure the evangelicals are all about it but, they're evangelicals and not to be taken seriously. He's definetely a populist, and as a whole we're pretty happy with him hence his HUGE landslide wins. Well the thing is Canola isn't part of the CWB jurisdiction and people can market it fine. I personally believe that with the high amount of support the CWB has, if the gov't opened up the market like it wants, the amount of support it has won't really affect it. Most of the small guys which the CWB helps the most are very old, so that's sort of redundant. Don't worry the biofuel thing is really helping things out. The GST thing really helps out here (the GST on farm inputs is mind boggling), the child care thing is very popular, tough stance on crime very popular, the lower tax ideology of the tories is also popular.

Sounds like you have an good MP. Populist MPs are hard to come by.

If you open of the market, you won't have a wheat board, which will be a market fact. Regardless of the spin, farmers voting do understand that you can only have one or the other and not both. They will have market choice or the wheat board and live with whatever the majority chooses.

It is interesting to read that your riding doesn't take evangelicals seriously.

So are you voting for the MP or the Party?

The reason I ask this, is that Inky doesn't like some of the things the Party is promoting, which are things you favour such as position their on the wheat board.

Yet there are a significant number of things that the CPC is doing that which you do not support.

And so while I am aware you state their are no other political choices, is it the party or the member?

[blueblood]

Inky is my MP, gay marriage is not a big priority in my riding, sure the evangelicals are all about it but, they're evangelicals and not to be taken seriously. He's definetely a populist, and as a whole we're pretty happy with him hence his HUGE landslide wins. Well the thing is Canola isn't part of the CWB jurisdiction and people can market it fine. I personally believe that with the high amount of support the CWB has, if the gov't opened up the market like it wants, the amount of support it has won't really affect it. Most of the small guys which the CWB helps the most are very old, so that's sort of redundant. Don't worry the biofuel thing is really helping things out. The GST thing really helps out here (the GST on farm inputs is mind boggling), the child care thing is very popular, tough stance on crime very popular, the lower tax ideology of the tories is also popular.

Sounds like you have an good MP. Populist MPs are hard to come by.

If you open of the market, you won't have a wheat board, which will be a market fact. Regardless of the spin, farmers voting do understand that you can only have one or the other and not both. They will have market choice or the wheat board and live with whatever the majority chooses.

It is interesting to read that your riding doesn't take evangelicals seriously.

So are you voting for the MP or the Party?

The reason I ask this, is that Inky doesn't like some of the things the Party is promoting, which are things you favour such as position their on the wheat board.

Yet there are a significant number of things that the CPC is doing that which you do not support.

And so while I am aware you state their are no other political choices, is it the party or the member?

There are much more other christian churches in the area and the evangelicals rub a lot of people the wrong way. The vast majority of rural Canadians don't attend evangelical church, just that they are the most vocal form of christianity.

If the market opens, the board will have to evolve rapidly, if done right with the amount of support it already receives it can be done.

I'm voting for both. When the natives pulled the treaty card a few years ago fishing out the lakes in the area, he got on a podium and publicly slammed them. Since he is asian, they couldn't cry out "white boy racism" it was priceless.

Most political parties don't 100% appeal to all Canadians, we just pick one which most suits us, (I hope)

Personally we should get rid of the whole party system.

[Topaz]

If you read "North America Union" posted by PolyNewbie on this forum, almost everything will become clear why the Cons want to CWB gone. There is no Wheat Board in the US and Mexico and if these countries are to become one, EVERYTHING has to be the same.