Letters and Editorials 3322 Views by Eduard Hiebert

CWB: For-Profit Farm Media supports Harper government



It's with dismay and bitter irony that I note John Morriss, currently the editor in chief of a whole raft of `for profit' prairie farm newspapers, including what now, in name only, is the "Manitoba Co-operator", would publish an editorial encouraging farmers to drop their resistance and legal challenges to Harper's unilateral top-down intentions to axe the CWB (Canadian Wheat Board).  This despite Morriss' earlier personal experience as a CWB employee and then editor of the  Manitoba Co-operator when still part of a prairie grain co-operative where Morriss would have had eye-witness exposure to a large range of the benefits of the CWB single-desk to Canadians in general and to prairie farmers in particular.
 
Before addressing two key editorial rationalizations, first one paragraph on framing our democratic rights and responsibilities.  Lest we forget, Leonard T. Hobhouse in LIBERALISM -- no less already in 1911-- wrote "Liberty (ie. "Freedom" as used by anti-Canadian Wheat Board cohorts)... (is) not so much a right of the individual as a necessity of the society. It rests not on the claim of A to be let alone by B, but on the duty of B to treat A as a rational being". 
 
From this vantage point, with reference to the two November 3, 2011 Manitoba Co-operator editorials regarding what I see as Stephen Harper's anti-democratic government actions using aggression and coercion to expropriate the value of the prairie farmer's CWB single-desk to the benefit of big-business, I appreciate and applaud the lead editorial's fact supported and eye-opening counter-points to the Harper government's phony "apples to oranges comparisons that amount to a bunch of bananas"!
 
Concerning the second editorial's opinion that it is time for single-desk supporting farmers to throw in the towel and go along to get along; knowing that even children and animals discount the pain of an accidental human aggression and Churchill said never appease an aggressor, two rational arguments lead me to a different conclusion. 
 
First, "Parliament is supreme"?  One exception disproves that rule!  Here are two  examples: 1) No matter how obnoxiously repugnant Harper claims he sees the BC drug user needle exchange program, please recall the recent Supreme Court of Canada ruling that falls within a long-standing historical corrective to the earlier notion that Parliament like "the King can do no wrong". The Court forbade Harper from withholding public  funds and from killing the program. 2) NAFTA -- an oxymoron -- is a Mulroney concocted corporate friendly, citizen unfriendly one-sided trade law that prevents nationalization, but makes open season on privatization of the public good, including water... Therefore in principle, specific to NAFTA, privatizing the CWB is encouraged, but Parliament is specifically denied the power to re-nationalize!!!
 
Next "the government was elected with a majority in Parliament"? That is a slippery bit of logic.  Even Harper, no doubt with a  calculated forked tongue during his opposition "Reform" days,  advanced the electoral reform hope that a vote123 preferential ballot was democratic while a single-mark one which allowed the Liberals "to slip up the middle" was undemocratic. To avoid vote-split results, Harper's own party leadership election, like May, Layton, Dion, Martin, Chretien, was a vote123 variant!  So now that Harper is in power, why not extend vote123 to the People?  While adopting a vote123 ballot is among the smallest steps parliament can take, please do not hold your breath waiting for a people's vote123 .  The rancour among and between party leaders is more for public show while their inaction and wilful ignorance belies the reality that they, including Layton, may he rest in peace, have a history where they more closely watch each other's backs than do right by the 99% of the public.
 
It's also simply a question of fact whether the 167 Conservatives "declared" elected in 2011 were supported by a mere 29.86% of those who voted, that is18.33% of Canada's electorate!  In 163 out of 308 ridings a clear majority of citizens who voted, did not vote for the candidate who was declared elected!  One MP was declared where fully 69% of Canadians who voted, did not vote for Hedy Fry. In 2008? Six MPs, including Lawrence Cannon, Harper's spin-minister of democracy to the war in Afghanistan, were all declared elected where over two-thirds of the people voting did not vote for the ones declared elected!  Accordingly, after the 2011 election, especially of NDPers, I raised the question, with over 65% of Canadians unhappy with the election outcome, how is it that both Jack Layton and Stephen Harper are both ecstatically happy with the election outcome?  However, a vote123 preferential ballot, even as a citizen conducted straw-vote poll would mitigate these anti-democratic outcomes!
 
Only on the basis of one shred of truth in isolation of most others does Harper have a "majority" government, and the truth be told, even within genuine majority rule governments, minorities, thanks to the rule of law as just stated earlier have key rights, rights that parliament cannot justly take away.  Harper's actions from proroguing Parliament to axing the CWB are simply politically calculated barn razing events to profit the 1% at expense of the environment and the barn raising activities of the 99%!

About the writer:

Eduard Hiebert is a Canadian prairie third generation family grain farmer.


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