In several media releases, Agriculture Minster Gerry Ritz is espousing the virtues of "marketing freedom." It appears he is still in the honeymoon stage of "marketing freedom."
Mr. Ritz should go undercover like "the boss" on the TV show and take a load of wheat to the elevator and see how the grain companies operate. Some of the grain companies' favourite quotes are as follows:
1. Sorry, no room for the No. 2 wheat you have on your truck but we do have lots of room for No. 3!
2. Sorry, no room for CWB wheat; we are taking our own wheat contracts first.
3. Why sell to the CWB when you can get paid all your money upfront?
4. Sorry, dry wheat is now 14 per cent so we have to discount it.
5. You didn't buy any of your inputs from us - we have to serve other customers first.
6. Sorry, no extra money for wheat with protein values over 13.5 per cent.
7. How many tonnes of this grain do you have for sale?
8. Sorry, only semi loads, no smaller grain trucks!
9. What's the Canada Grain Commission?
10. If you have concerns about the wording of our contract, you don't have to deal with us. The next elevator is only 80 miles down the road.
Ritz and his Conservative government have taken my choice (single-desk CWB) and my freedom away from me and given all the powers, rules and regulations to the multinational grain companies. They are taking money from producers' pockets to reward shareholders under this "new marketing freedom."
The Conservatives have turned us back over 100 years to an archaic "open market" which is a financial abuse to all producers under the so-called new name "marketing freedom."
Eric Sagan
Melville, Sask.