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Posted on 10/05/2002 8:11:13 PM PDT by Trouble North of the Border
Alberta farmers risk jail in protest of the Canadian Wheat Board
Wednesday October 01, 2002 - 19:02:41 EST
CAROL HARRINGTON
http://www.guelphmercury.com/news/national/n1001118A.html
CALGARY (CP) - Alberta farmer Jim Ness tightened the handcuffs around his wrists Tuesday, declaring he and several other farmers will likely go to jail next month for illegally exporting grain in a protest over the Canadian Wheat Board.
"We won't back down, we won't give in, we're going to jail," Ness told a news conference. "We'll stand shoulder to shoulder and get locked away like common criminals for nothing more than trying to get freedom to market our own product," said Ness, 58, who farms near the Saskatchewan-Alberta boundary. "It will be the hardest thing we've ever done."
Farmers for Justice, a group of 14 Alberta farmers, were convicted of illegally transporting grain across the U.S. border in 1996 because they didn't have proper documentation from the wheat board. They are supposed to pay fines of $1,000 to $7,500 before Nov. 1.
But many of those farmers refuse to pay those fines to protest the board's monopoly.
They point out that farmers in Ontario and Quebec are allowed to market their own products, but farmers in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba have to sell their barley and wheat to the board.
"That's discrimination," Ness said.
The farmers said they want access to world markets so they can freely sell their grain, just as most other Canadian businesses are able to sell their products internationally.
The Canadian Wheat Board has argued that if it gives up its monopoly to prairie farmers for a trial period, under international trading rules the board would not be able to reassert it at the end of the trial. It also points out it represents farmers with elected delegates.
Several of the farmers' wives and children attended the news conference, along with five Canadian Alliance MPs and two members of the Alberta legislature.
Gina Turcato said that while she doesn't want to see her husband, John, dragged off to jail from their farm near Taber, Alta., she supports his decision.
"It's hard thinking about it," she said. "The whole court process and worrying has been bad for the past six years."
In 1996 when the case went to trial in Lethbridge, Alta., a Crown prosecutor told a judge in his closing remarks that it was a political issue.
"If this is a political issue, is it possible that we are going to be political prisoners?" Ness asked Tuesday.
Rod Hanger - a farmer from Three Hills, Alta., who refuses to pay his fine - said it's comforting to have strong support.
"If nothing else, there's strength in numbers," he said. "By standing together here, we are fighting for not just this group but for all the farmers out there in general."
Several Canadian Alliance MPs accuse the federal government of dragging out the case in courts for years, hoping that many of the farmers will drop their fight.
"Some of those delays were unwarranted in an effort to try to suppress it all, to shovel it all to the side," said Calgary MP Art Hanger.
"And it worked - there used to be several dozen farmers fighting this."
© The Canadian Press, 2002
>>
The wheat board no longer has a place in our liberal democracy
The Ottawa Citizen Friday, October 04, 2002
Alberta farmer Jim Ness and several of his peers are likely to go to jail next month. Their crime: attempting to market a legal product they produced themselves. How can a free society permit this?
In 1996, 14 farmers were convicted of illegally transporting grain to the United States because they didn't have the proper paperwork from the Canadian Wheat Board, the Second World War-era federal agency that claims all rights to a farmer's grain in Western Canada. Mr. Ness and the others must pay fines ranging from $1,000 to $7,500 before Nov. 1 or face jail time.
So far, they're opting for jail. "We'll stand shoulder to shoulder and get locked away like common criminals," Mr. Ness vows.
He and his fellow rebels are right to feel defiant. No country can call itself truly free when a large sector of its economy is not. The Canadian Wheat Board is imposed on farmers without their consent. It sets prices and quotas as it wishes, and, as policy, does not reveal how it functions to the very people forced to deal with it. Most of us take our ability to buy and sell for granted. The wheat board denies this basic right to western farmers.
The board's background is an interesting exercise in arbitrary power. Using the same law it passed to expropriate property from interned Japanese-Canadians during the Second World War, the federal government expanded the wartime powers granted to its wheat board and the control the board had over other grains. Although western farmers protested, the British Privy Council sided with the government.
For the 21st century, it's time to reform this arrangement: Eliminate the board, or turn it over to the farmers themselves, with membership entirely voluntary.
It is offensive that anyone is required to sell his production and skill to one buyer, namely the federal government, at the price it determines in secret.
"Property rights have value for more than economic reasons. The right to own and enjoy property is the basis of moral independence," wrote Kevin Avram, a member of the Prairie Centre Policy Institute, a group opposed to the board, in 1998. "Societies which are the most immoral are those which have the least regard for property."
When the federal government defends the existence of the wheat board, it is defending the expropriation of farmers' property in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba.
Virtually no other profession in this nation -- and that includes grain farmers in Ontario and Quebec -- is forced to give up the efforts of its own production to a government monopoly just so its members can work in a particular trade (true, Quebec is trying the same game with its doctors just now, but so far hasn't succeeded).
It's time we put to pasture the notion that farmers shouldn't be allowed to grow their business like any other. © Copyright 2002 The Ottawa Citizen
Farmer's being sent to jail for selling grain? Truth is stranger than fiction.
This is an outrageous travesty and infringement on basic human rights. Canada claims that it supports human rights but it abuses its farmers horribly in the middle of the worst drought in recorded history.
The state of Canadian agricluture is shameful. And this is the final outrage.
Jim Ness, one of the farmer's likely being hauled off in handcuffs next month is a Free Dominion member.
Time for a serious FReep for farmers.
Will Free Republic, our North American sister website help Free Dominion with an international FReep on this issue?
Based on the issues of human rights. Would Free Republic members be willing to send emails something like this:
I am an American citizen, and I am shocked to learn that Canada sends farmer's to jail for selling grain. As this is a political issue, Jim Ness and the other farmer's should be pardoned and this should be settled without sending productive, law abiding citizens to jail for selling their grain.
Will you help us?
The RATS have soooo screwed us!
It sounds politically correct to me.
Of course, I'm not a politically correct supporter. Free the farmers. Government should have no say on social issues.
Flush once and get the job done, or flush 3 times to do the same thing. More water ends up getting used. Heck, flush a few extra times just for spite. Flush away, America!
3 flushes minimum to get the job done.
"If this is a political issue, is it possible that we are going to be political prisoners?" Ness asked Tuesday.
Yes. Similar to 2,300 years ago when Socrates chose to drink the Hemlock rather than give any credibility to bogus political rulers. They didn't want to carry through with their political agenda, knowing that it was bogus, so they arranged an escape route for Socrates. Their hope was that he would "escape" so that they wouldn't have to put him to death. Socrates chose to stand firm on honest principle and chose to drink the Hemlock over escape.
Is that anything like
replacing Joyce?
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