Reading Time: 2 minutes At the recent Alberta Beef Producers (ABP) semi-annual meeting, chairman Doug Sawyer took a bold pre-emptive strike against a topic that has been whispered about in cattle industry circles for years. He bluntly stated that his organization was opposed to the directed or directional checkoff. That took other cattle producer organizations like the Alberta Cattle […] Read more
ABP takes pre-emptive strike on directional checkoff
Would supply management’s demise be good for Alberta?
Tough competition Mega-operations could take over, but they might be in another province — or country
Reading Time: 3 minutes Urban media pundits and self-styled experts are once again expounding on the evils of supply management and why it needs to be terminated. They have been emboldened by the Canadian government’s alleged decision to put supply management on the table as the price of joining the Trans Pacific Partnership trade group. As expected, export-oriented commodity […] Read moreThe goal should be more of consumption of beef, period
Competition It’s from pork, poultry, lamb and fish, not from other Canadian beef producers
Reading Time: 3 minutes At its recent semi-annual meeting in Edmonton, Alberta Beef Producers unveiled its latest promotion slogan: “Alberta Beef — Famous Taste.” It’s another version of a long-running beef consumption campaign that started some 40 years ago. Some of those campaigns, which are revamped every few years, are more successful than others. Perhaps the most successful in […] Read moreMore production is not the only solution to hunger
Reading Time: 3 minutes Every year we hear the stories — the farmer who lost a bin full of canola to spoilage, or the one who lost his sunflowers — and the bin — after the crop overheated and caught fire. Or the farmer who opened his grain bag to find an infested, rotting mess after birds or rodents […] Read more
Gun registry is gone, gun owners registry isn’t
Reading Time: 2 minutes A recent letter to the editor of the Manitoba Co-operator from Inky Mark of Dauphin, Manitoba. Mark is a former Conservative member of Parliament for Dauphin-Swan River. Most gun owners in Canada believe that once the long-gun registry is revoked by C-19, everything will return to normal to pre-C-68 days. How wrong it is to […] Read more
Alberta an agrarian hinterland? Not quite
Reading Time: 3 minutes Recently former Alberta leader Peter Lougheed was proclaimed and lauded as Canada’s best premier. I am not sure whether that proclamation was the result of a careful academic analysis or a glorified popularity contest. The folks who judged this “best premier” exercise were mostly from other parts of Canada. I expect if this was an […] Read more
Grain freight regulations inhibit productivity
Revenue cap It is worth considering whether the cap on grain earnings is smart regulation
Reading Time: 3 minutes The cost of railway infrastructure projects, such as the Rogers Pass tunnel or network acquisition, is staggering. In contrast, rail’s air, trucking and marine competitors have an advantage from the outset in not having to build or maintain infrastructure. And while rail can withstand underinvestment for years, eventually a lack of capital catches up and […] Read moreLetters — for 2012-06-04 00:00:00
Reading Time: < 1 minute The CGC has been contacted by Mr. Bill Toews who advised that he is concerned about the attribution of a statement in the feature on the CGC’s 100th anniversary printed in the April 9 issue. In the piece entitled “CGC guarantees Canadian grain quality worldwide,” the quote, “You have a disciplined system for putting grain […] Read more
Are farmers the bait in Fisheries Act changes?
Reading Time: 2 minutes Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz and Fisheries Minister Keith Ashfield seem to be using farmers as bait to get the public to swallow the changes to the Fisheries Act. By suggesting that the federal government is abandoning protection of fish habitat so that farmers don’t have to deal with red tape when they maintain their irrigation […] Read more
Calgary graduates its first class of vets
Reading Time: 3 minutes This month will see the graduation of the first class of students from the University of Calgary faculty of veterinary medicine. Congratulations to those students. After four years of intensive study in one of the most difficult of professions, they have made a remarkable achievement. Veterinary medicine is sometimes seen as more difficult to master […] Read more