Rosanne Wowchuk: choice denier

Recently, western Canadian farmers voted for freedom. A freedom already enjoyed by eastern Canadian farmers, BTW. Now, some people are screeching from the rooftops, "See! See! Farmers don't want to destroy the Wheat Board!" But of course when you read the actual results, you realize that what farmers want is choice. Choice to market their grain either with the WB or independently. 62% voted for that.

And then I was listening to CJOB and Kacey Wilson had on Rosanne Wowchuk, MB Agriculture Minister. NDP. And her responses made me wonder no more why the NDP, both provincially and federally, have no credibility.

(For the audio, click here and fast forward to 46:20.)

First off, she began by attacking the questions. That's right, don't accept the results;
attack the questions. Her quote: "...62% voting against the Wheat Board is not an accurate number...if you cancel out the flawed question which said 'do you want choice or maintaining the Wheat Board' in fact it was a very low percentage that said they wanted barley removed from the Canadian Wheat Board."

Then she goes on to be disingenuous about the will of the farmers:
"If you take out the flawed question and you just look at the results of the question 'do you want barley maintained under the Wheat Board?', those results far exceed the results that say 'remove barley from the Wheat Board'."

Yeah, ignore one of the questions. You think it's flawed, but I think it's perfectly legitimate. Do farmers want no CWB, CWB monopoly, or the CWB as an option? You could lump 2 questions together either way--say that 62.2% of farmers want the CWB not to be forced upon them (my take on it); or you could say that 86.2% of farmers want the CWB kept. (Of course, that last one ignores the fact that 48.4/86.2, or 56% of those who want to keep the CWB, want not to be forced to use it.) But I think it's clear: farmers don't want the CWB crammed down their throats. Oops. Western Canadians, as our eastern counterparts already have that choice. Funny, that.

Then, she completely blew away the argument (her own!) to keep the CWB: that with competition, the CWB wouldn't be able to compete. Uh, of course, haven't people been saying that if the CWB were good, it would be able to compete because it gets better prices?

"If the federal Minister is going to go to a dual-market system, he has to address the issues of infrastructure and how the Canadian Wheat Board will survive when they are in competition with buyers of grain."

And then:

"If he thinks that they can operate when they don't have an infrastructure system, no elevators, and no control on many things, I don't see how the Wheat Board can stay in barley marketing when they have to compete with the other people who have all the infrastructure."

I had a giant Whiskey Tango Foxtrot moment then. Is or isn't infrastructure already in place? And wouldn't free-market buyers create said infrastructure were it not in place? You know, to make things easier on farmers?

Oh, forsooth, howsoever did grain farmers ever make it without the hallowed Canadian Wheat Board?

Wake up, Wowchuk. The Wheat Board is hated by most farmers; most farmers want freedom to choose to whom they sell their grain. And it's obvious you don't. Sucks to be on the losing side, eh? You'll likely find that out in a big way later this year.