Perhaps it's time to get rid of Gerry Ritz...

Imagine you run a company. Your department managers, whiz-kids from one business school, execute a new business model over the course of three years which depletes your cash reserves. Your balance sheet bottom line is still black, but the number is lower than it has ever been in ten years.

The whiz-kids tell you not to worry. They can run each of their departments better if they can spend the money to reposition the company. In the end the company will be leaner, more competitive and, perhaps best of all, it will be feared by other companies - even bigger ones. They project a bright and promising future by using the money to make the company, in their eyes, more powerful. The need for a cash reserve will be overcome by the enormous projected revenue generated by the new business model.

As the next year's figures come in you realize that the whiz-kids have done exactly what they said they would do. They spent the cash reserves, shifted funds and reformed the company. The departments look considerably different. Some have grown while others have virtually disappeared.

One department, however, resisted the change to the new business model and continued, despite pressure from the whiz-kids, to operate under the old model with some minor adaptations.

The whiz-kids provide the latest numbers and to your horror it is a balance sheet covered in red ink. The department which did not change to the whiz-kid business model is the outlier. It has outperformed even its own projections. It is profitable and healthy. Workers are enjoying good pay, bonuses and a bright outlook for the future. The department has captured market share from other larger companies and stands to do better in the next year.

Then the whiz-kid in charge of that department comes to you and tells you to eliminate that department - because it doesn't fit the only business model they ever learned at their one business school.

Would that make any sense to you? No?

So why would anyone even consider getting rid of the Canadian Wheat Board in today's market environment?

Now go read Buckdog.

Harper doesn't have a hidden agenda...

... it's right out there in the open and you can read all about it any time you like on the "Agenda for Canada" page of the National Citizens Coalition.

Founded back in '67 by a life insurance executive millionaire to fight against public healthcare, the National Citizens Coalition is the right wing lobby group Harper once headed as president and to which he will undoubtedly return, as he did in '97 following his stint as a Reform MP.

From the NCC's "Agenda for Canada" :

• cut big government spending
• get a better return on our health-care investments
• allow Canadians to keep more of the money they earn
• push for a democratically elected senate, a strong military, a privatized CBC
• entrench property rights
• end the Wheat Board monopoly
• restore rights to union workers
• end CRTC censorship

A very big, and somewhat topical, priority for them has been legally challenging electoral financing laws limiting third-party advertising spending during election campaigns, as in The Attorney General of Canada v. Stephen Joseph Harper .

They have also mounted media campaigns against grants for the arts and social advocacy organizations, and against public funding for human rights and women's groups.
Currently they have one going against Dion's carbon tax.

Any of this sound at all familiar?

And then there's that famous speech Harper made in June 1997 to the U.S. Council for National Policy, the one in which he referred to Canada as "a Northern European welfare state in the worst sense of the term". He was Vice-President of the NCC at the time.

Harper always was just temporarily on loan to us from the NCC; it's time for them to take him back again.

Crossposted at Creekside

Harper's war on the Canadian Wheat Board

Aug 2, 2007 : (italics mine)
"One ongoing concern remains Harper's determination to end the Canadian Wheat Board monopoly on the marketing of western barley crops. A recent federal court ruling upheld the wheat board's right to serve as a single marketing desk for Canadian barley.

Harper said the monopoly would have to end, no matter what the court has said.
"We're obviously disappointed with the court decision," he said, "but that does not change the determination of the government of Canada to see a dual market for Canadian farmers.

"I hope the wheat board will start working with the government to make sure this is gonna happen, 'cause it's gonna happen one way or another, whether it takes a little bit of time or a lot of time, it's gonna happen."

Aug 2, 2008: (italics mine)
"The Harper government is tinkering with the rules governing the election of Canadian Wheat Board directors in an attempt to influence this fall's scheduled vote, critics charge.

Late Friday, Ottawa announced it would remove advertising spending limits for third-party interveners in wheat board elections.

"It's just another attack on the Canadian Wheat Board," said National Farmers Union president Stewart Wells. "They think they can marshal lots of corporate money and lots of big-spender money and try to destroy the board by advertising against it."


The spending limits for wheat board candidates, 8 out of 10 of whom support the wheat board's monopoly on wheat and barley sales, are capped at $15,000.
Monsanto, on the other hand, once blocked by the Wheat Board from Canadian registration of RoundUp Ready Wheat, will now be allowed, should they so desire, to run as many ads advocating "choice" for wheat farmers as they like.

A timeline of the Con's attacks on the wheat board includes firing the CWB president and two directors, striking 16,269 farmers - or 36% - from the voters' list, and issuing a gag order preventing the CWB from making its case to the public.

h/t Peterborough Politics for the Aug 2, 2008 newslink
Cross-posted at Creekside

Judge tells Harper where he can put his barley

Via Le Revue Gauche a Federal Court judge has ruled that Conservative government actions to change the operation of the Canadian Wheat Board are not being conducted in a lawful manner.

A judge has struck down the federal government's move to strip the Canadian Wheat Board of its monopoly on western barley sales.

In a ruling issued Tuesday, Federal Court Judge Dolores Hansen said the government overstepped its authority in trying to end the monopoly through a simple cabinet order.

The decision is a victory for supporters of the wheat board, who argue that having all barley sales handled through the board gives farmers better prices.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservative government announced earlier this year it would end the board's monopoly on barley as of Aug. 1, and give farmers the option of selling independently.

The government changed the board's barley-handling through regulations approved by the Conservative cabinet.

Critics successfully argued the change can only be made by passing a law in Parliament — something that could be blocked by the opposition.

In short, this is telling Harper and Chuck Strahl that when they govern by fiat they are breaking the law.

In 1998 the control of the Canadian Wheat Board was handed to farmers in the form of a 15 member board. The federal government has no authority to override the board by way of cabinet order because the Canadian Wheat Board, while established under federal legislation, is not a government department and not a Crown Corporation.

If Harper and Strahl want to change how the Canadian Wheat Board operates they have to get legislation through parliament to change this act.

That isn't going to happen.

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Sidebar: Apparently, if you're attempting to read this post from Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, you can't do it from your government desktop computer. It seems certain "liberal" blogs are now blocked on some government computers.

We'll be talking about that later.

Oh. Yes. We. Will.