Farming welfare bums

Harpers Coservatives have been pro corporate dictatorship all along. I asked a fed about labeling laws so Canadians can easily determine what is Canadian. He said it has been discussed, but some are reluctant because the US would do the same reducing export markets fo Canadian produce.It's currently very difficult to find out where produce comes from. Lets bring in mandatory source labeling laws and enable Canadians to choose for ourselves where we want our food to come from. With the amount of US food here, there is more than enough local market to support our local farmers. Are the real welfare bums, urbanites, who benefit from the unprofitable( in other words "Charity work") done by farmers who feed them, sometimes at a loss? Brent

To throw a wet blanket, it doesn't matter what is said here, we can have all kinds of ideas, in the end it makes no difference because canadians have no power. I don't agree that just because you vote a certain party, you have no right to complain, that's just ludicrous. Canadians have very little democratic opportunities. If I live in a rural area where the NDP gets about six percent of the vote then its pointless to go vote NDP. If the tory candidate also is a farmer or neighbour, then one can still think that is better than the party who's been pushing you toward bankruptcy. But it's clear what the problems are, they started in the early eighties and have gotten worse. Trouble is, farmers didn't even have enough members to get David Orchard in, and if you think farmers supported Harper over Orchard you're crazy. You have to remember that european countries have proportional representation, which means farming parties at least have a shot. In Canada, bubkus. Finally, I"m not sure but most produce has the country of origin labelled on it, and I don't think NAFTA allows import restrictions or government favouring local produce. Not sure about that though. Finally, finally, city folks, as mentioned above, have problems of their own, getting them to adopt rural problems will be tough. However, farmers have shown up at both queens park AND ottawa, and there were far more farming protests during Harris' reign, there were massive ones. In BOTH Ottawa and Toronto, it depends specifically on what is being addressed, these guys aren't stupid and they are far more active than just posting online. I think its a little too armchairy to say they don't know what they're doing or should adopt the suggestions of spectators. As for the suggestions, import restrictions are right out, however, it is interesting to note that here in our city, a study came out about the effects of shipping in food. Food issues are definitely coming to the fore, the question is, how do you make it a political issue, when you have no political power? You can 'buy local' but thats about it.

The probelem was clearly outlines in"The Canadian Clearances". All major political parties in Canada have as their agenda forcing people off the land and into the cities in order to clear the land of any possible encumberance to corporate takeover and exploitation of the land. Regardless of any political platitudes to the contrary, that machevelian human engineering experiment is what all political parties are dedicated to.In bygone days they needed people on the land to do the work of corporations. Now anyone on the land is simply an impediment to the coporate agenda. Brent

Just to put things in perspective here are some FACTS, 5 years old, I believe its much worse now, but the latest available at statscan. 2001 Census of Agriculture Extracts – see http://www.statcan.ca/english/agcensus2001/index.htm The 2001 Census of Agriculture reported 346,200 farm operators, 10% fewer than the 385,600 reported in 1996. The group of farmers under 35 years old represented 11.5% of all farmers in 2001, compared with 15.8% in 1996 and 19.9% in 1991. (average age of farmers was 55) Both men and women have increased their rate of working off the farm since 1990, and roughly equal proportions of women farm operators (45.6%) and men (44.2%) worked at non-farm jobs in 2000. Canada’s farm population continues to decline, dropping from 851,410 people in 1996 to 727,125 in 2001. In Canada’s farm population, immigrants are a declining proportion of a declining population — the opposite of the general population. The average total income from all sources for all farm census families in 2000 was $64,160, 3.2% lower than the $66,263 received by census families in the general population. Net farm income contributed only 18 cents of each dollar earned in total family income for 2000, slightly lower than in 1995. Total population of Canada in 2001 was 29,914,315 Total Farm population was 727,130 (2.4%) Total Urban Population was 23,860,848 Total Rural Population was 6,053,467 (20.2%) For Comparison Total population of vote rich Ontario was 11,410,046 The Farm population was 186,085 (1.6%) Total Urban Population was 9,662,547 Total Rural Population was 1,747,499 (15.3) Communities of less than 1000 or with densities of less than 400 per Sq Km are considered rural. So you can see here how little clout rural and farm communities have when it comes time to elect new Provincial or Federal representatives.

Very little fresh produce has country of origin labels on it.In many stores you can't find out where it is from.That should be mandatory. The NDP are the only major party opposing the signing of unfair free trade aggreements.A vote for the NDP is a vote for such a stand and strengthens their arguement politically, no matter who wins. They used to be six percent of the vote in Sask and Manitoba, now they are the government.Their standing in the last election has no bearing on how you should vote in the next. This is case of choose what kind of policies you want to run the place, not a guess the winner contest. If you were in post war Germany and you thought Hitler was going to win the next election would that justify you voting for him?That kind of foolishenss will result in the mice forever being run by governments of cats. Brent

Uh, Hitler wasn't a leader after the war. The NDP got elected because they were an organized force, meaning that large farming organizations acted together-in other words the people knew that many others were voting that way. In any general election if there is no visible impetus toward a certain party, then your ONE vote is meaningless. This is why I"m always surprised the NDP (or other parties) do very little campaigning between elections. As for the produce, the "Consumer Packaging and Labelling Act" specifies that 'country of origin' must be labelled on all agricultural products, meat and fish. If anybody notices somebody selling without such labels they should notify the manager, as well as the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.

[QUOTE]Marcarc: If the tory candidate also is a farmer or neighbour, then one can still think that is better than the party who's been pushing you toward bankruptcy.[/QUOTE] Khmm... it's actually the conservative parties who push farmers into bankrupcy. [QUOTE]Brent: All major political parties in Canada have as their agenda forcing people off the land and into the cities in order to clear the land of any possible encumberance to corporate takeover and exploitation of the land.[/QUOTE] Actually, not completely. When the Liberals got elected in Ontario a few years ago, they introduced legislation to stop urban sprawling and restricted how far out housing developers can spread. Not surprisingly it drew immediate protests from developers. What was a surprise though, farmers' groups also protested. The restrictions on urban sprawl are preventing them from selling their land to developers, so they protest.

The conservative party hasn't been in power in over a decade. Most legislation affecting farming occurs at the federal level, that's the liberals. I wasn't aware of ANY farming organizations who protested the environmental legislation of McGuinty, if you could footnote that it would be appreciated. Just because some developer who is paying one or two farmers a fortune for their land and asks them to write a letter to the editor doesn't make it an industry thing. Just like if one small businessman writes a letter to the editor or something doesn't mean they represent small businesses. These groups have official organizations and spokespeople. However, like I said, just mention what groups were protesting. THe urban sprawl legislation wouldn't have that big an effect anyway, it was primarily designed to protected specific areas, not to add hurdles for farmers trying to sell. It would be very difficult to introduce legislation on farmers selling when they expropriate rural land all the time for gas lines. Farmers could simply sue for loss of income. So for any farmer it makes perfect sense to go for the party which is in opposition and is at least making gestures towards solving the problems. However, the other thing people have to keep in mind is the rapid reduction in the number of farms, meaning that small farmers tend to become bigger or get out the business. That means that a 'farming organization' today, which will represent fewer, and larger, farms, will have far different issues than the 'survival' issues of just a decade ago. You'll notice there is next to no interest in trying to aid small farms just getting going.

Quote Markarc “Most legislation affecting farming occurs at the federal level, that's the liberals.” Hardly, yes the “Free” trade and import / export file in their camp, but lots of other stuff is not. Here is one example. Corner Post #424 Farm & Countryside Commentary by Elbert van Donkersgoed March 13, 2006 The Ontario Ministry of Environment is moving forward on a deeply flawed piece of legislation, the Clean Water Act, 2005. This act has a great goal: “protect the natural sources of our drinking water.” It sets up a unique planning process, locally developed source water protection plans in watersheds across Ontario. Our conservation authorities get to guide the process through multi-stakeholder source protection planning committees. While MOE’s proposed process for getting to source protection plans is creative and unique, on implementation it has a one-track mind — regulation through bylaws, orders, permits, inspectors and enforcement officers. It would be easy to conclude that the Clean Water Act is about catching polluters! This is the first flaw. This act is about pollution prevention but MOE’s implementation approach reads like Ontario’s Environmental Protection Act — the law that defines when substances in the wrong place become pollutants. Farmers want clean water and will work to assure source water is clean but a major new pollution prevention initiative should not be confused with catching polluters. Second, the act has the potential to limit normal farm practices on some farmland – practices that have been acceptable for generations – practices like drainage, spreading livestock manure or controlling infestations with pesticides. Implementation of a source protection plan could include prohibiting, by municipal bylaw, some farming activities and requiring permits to continue with others in specific locations. The legislation will require some farmers to replace their normal farm practices with routines that create new environmental assurances for the rest of society. Asking farmers to provide the service of environmental assurance is legitimate. Giving municipalities the authority through the implementation of a source protection plan to demand new services is not. The act needs a different implementation solution – the service of environmental assurance should be paid for. Third, there is aggregate impact. Long-term risks from agriculture for clean water are not from a few careless individual farmers causing a fish kill. The Environmental Protection Act should -- and can -- be enforced to forestall repeat offences. Rather consider the impact of many farmers doing much the same series of activities year after year but with a growing intensity in a watershed. Farming changes the environment in order to make lands more productive. One farm and one activity have a negligible effect on a watershed or aquifer. Indeed, our farming system has an impact, but it is no one person’s responsibility. The Clean Water Act focuses on individual landowners. It is not designed to manage farming’s aggregate impact on the environment. The bottom line: when you want to stop pollution, throw the rule book at the polluters. When you want to create the service of environmental assurance, we need a more creative approach than more bylaws, orders, permits, inspectors and enforcement officers. ___________ Bill 43: Clean Water Act, 2005 and background information can be found at http://www.ene.gov.on.ca/envision/water/cwa.htm Elbert van Donkersgoed P. Ag. (Hon.) is the Strategic Policy Advisor of the Christian Farmers Federation of Ontario, Canada. Corner Post is heard weekly on CFCO Chatham, CKNX Wingham and CHOK Sarnia, Ontario. Corner Post has a complimentary email subscriber list of more than 3,750 and is archived on the CFFO website: www.christianfarmers.org/index.html. CFFO is supported by 4,300 family farmers across Ontario. The discussion about what party farmers voted for or which one takes any notice of rural issues is pretty much defunct, in my view. It seems to be very low on all politicians list, which is to be expected given that farm FAMILIES comprise less than 2% of our population (less than the population of Edmonton for comparison) and even if you include all small rural communities and other rural residents it is still less than 20%. We just cant make ourselves heard over the background noise. In case you missed it the stats are on the previous page of this thread.

[QUOTE]Marcarc: I wasn't aware of ANY farming organizations who protested the environmental legislation of McGuinty, if you could footnote that it would be appreciated.[/QUOTE] One quick Google search does miracle sometimes, just have to look for the 2005 farmers protest in Toronto. Here is a link for your convenience: <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/story/canada/national/2005/03/09/farmer-fire-050309.html">Hundreds of farmers protest in Ontario, CBC, March 9 2005</a> As you can read, the farmers were protesting AGAINST the government's Green Belt legislation, which was designed to protect farm land in Ontario. I watched the protest on TV and saw John Tory there, sort of leading the protest. The miniter of agriculture came out to talk to the farmers but some dumb looking farmers surrounded him and they were yelling at the poor guy. John Tory was standing directly behind them, smiling. The minister then turned around and went back in. During the 2 day protest my 45-60 minute commute turned into 2 hours. It was frustrating and I was late for work. I didn't have any warm and fuzzy thought for those guys either. Inconveniencing a million people is not a very good way to make a point.

This, I think, says it all: "they snarled traffic on all the major routes leading into the city on Wednesday, riding tractors decorated with Canadian flags and signs with slogans including "Buy Canadian," "Stop Greenbelt" and "Liberal Farm Income Crisis." You'll also notice further down that they has a set of ten resolutions, which means the greenbelt was just one among many. The liberals immediately started backtracking on the greenbelt legislation, so it begs the question whether farmers were protesting issues that concern them NOW, or issues that MAY concern them in the future. You'll notice the leader seems most incensed about 'nuisance deer' more than anything, which just goes to show that there is far more than one issue affecting farmers. It is true that the 'overregulation' of rural areas would primarily be provincial, and the above message about the clean water act is as well. However, I don't know of too many farmers who closed up shop because of the regulations, and of course the clean water act hasn't even been passed. The other issue mentioned was aid, which would primarily be from the federal government. As for closing off traffic, farmers have few options available, at least it brings SOME concerned people to bulletin boards and at least find out what issues face them. In most studies I've seen its clear that people will buy local if they KNOW its local and at a comparible price. Canadians work the longest hours in the industrial world, and have problems of their own without looking for the problems of people they will never meet. However, slowly but surely food issues ARE coming to the fore. The question is whether there will be any farmers left by then.

I like getting my vegetables at farm stores but they tend to be closed for the winter and of course you don't get exotic ones. The other day we bought garlic that turned out to be Chinese. It turned green while being cooked. God only knows what it contained. Probably it was a DDT coctail.

The whole idea of the Canadian clearances effort to force them off the farm and into cities was to reduce their political clout by reducing their numbers and make a rural lifestyle a non option for Canadians. That is also part what motivated the gun registry. Maybe it takes city people who are dusgusted with city living and want to have an alternative , to put pressure on politicians to keep the option open.Their numbers are greater.Like the frog in boilingg water , we won't notice how our lifestyle options are being taken away ,until they are gone. Brent

OK... the Ontario provincial budget was released today, while the farmers' tractors were circling Queen's Park. Ontario still has about $2.4 billion deficit, leftover of the $9 billion the tories left behind. Some money was given for infrastructure subway expansion, GTA transit, TTC, roadrepair, that is why they couldn't balance the budget this year. The farmers didn't get any new money, apart from the $125 million emergeny aid the McGuinty government gave them 2 weeks ago. The message to farmers was: the government of Ontario did what it could but now the farmers must go to Ottawa for more aid. I thought it over and couldn't disagree with it. During the 8 years of the tory Harris/Eves government I lived in Toronto and my city was basically pillaged. The infrastructure was thrown in such a state of neglect that people from Third World countries said the infrastructure where they came from was better maintained. People died because they couldn't get health care. Children struggled because the schools were wrecked and some of them became dangerous and had to be evacuated. The roads were full of potholes. The damage done to Toronto and other urban areas by this asshole party was phenomenal. I never thought I would see this in a developed country. During this time, the farming crowd made fun of us. Publically, privately, through Internet forums, talk shows, TV, they let us know day and night that we are yahoos and deserve what we get. It was an arrogance fest and left deep scars. Then times changed, the tories were tossed out, and the recovery began. As much as I sympathize with farmers in hard times, whenever I think back to those times, I get really angry. Why did they hate us? Why did they make fun of us? What did we do to deserve it? Now we should take scarce tax dollars away from our crumbling infrastructure and spend it on them. We did do some of that, we game them some money. Now it's the feds' turn. The farmers voted conservative on the last election, so they should drive their tractors to Parliament Hill and talk to their elected MPs there. I am sure Harper & Co will spend big bucks to save the family farm. Btw, my wife made the comment that there is a new car in front of all farm houses. I looked and ralized she was right. We don't have a new car, we can't afford it.

Quote by Badsector “During the 2 day protest my 45-60 minute commute turned into 2 hours. It was frustrating and I was late for work. I didn't have any warm and fuzzy thought for those guys either. Inconveniencing a million people is not a very good way to make a point” I agree that it is not the best way to make city folk feel warm and fuzzy, but it got YOUR attention didnt it. How much attention would, or has, be given to rational discussion / reports / studies over the last several years on this issue? Quote “OK... the Ontario provincial budget was released today………………The message to farmers was: the government of Ontario did what it could but now the farmers must go to Ottawa for more aid.” The message I got was that they realy don’t care about the loss of the family farm, after all they are less than 2% of the voters so why not just ignore them. What is needed even more than the short term cash is a long term plan to return farming to a viable business operation but even that is but a distant dream. Quote” During the 8 years of the tory Harris/Eves government I lived in Toronto and my city was basically pillaged. The infrastructure was thrown in such a state of neglect that people from Third World countries said the infrastructure where they came from was better maintained. People died because they couldn't get health care. Children struggled because the schools were wrecked and some of them became dangerous and had to be evacuated. The roads were full of potholes. The damage done to Toronto and other urban areas by this asshole party was phenomenal. I never thought I would see this in a developed country.” And you think the school & health systems and infrastructure in rural areas received any different treatment? I can remember many rural communities fighting to keep their only local schools open. Quote “During this time, the farming crowd made fun of us. Publically, privately, through Internet forums, talk shows, TV, they let us know day and night that we are yahoos and deserve what we get. It was an arrogance fest and left deep scars.” Hmmmm……..Must have missed that, I was not on line back then so cant speak to what was said on the net but do not remember ANY time when the farming community exhibited that kind of behavior. IF it DID happen then it is no worse than your attitude towards farmers now, two wrongs do not make a right. Quote “The farmers voted conservative on the last election,” I SAY AGAIN how the hell can 2% of the population vote any party in? Quote “Btw, my wife made the comment that there is a new car in front of all farm houses. I looked and ralized she was right. We don't have a new car, we can't afford it.” Me neither, you must be looking at some different farms than I see, around here its mostly 10 year old beat up pickups!!