Why does the Canadian Minister of Agriculture, Gerry Ritz continue to say such absurd statements?   

Does he not know farming operations really work?  Is he getting all his talking points from Corporate Funded organzations like the Western Wheat Growers?  Maybe if he dug just a little deeper we wouldn't be in this problem?  Maybe he just wants a place on the board of a giant grain company when he leaves public office. 

Note:  Many misleading quotes from Ritz can be found on the Parliament Hansards found on openparliament.ca  He has been leading the public and farmers to believe that farmers will be freer without a farmer-run single-desk Wheat Board.  The reality is that there will be very limited competition between a small number of multi-national grain companies. Farmers are about to pay more fees for services and inputs.  The CWB has been like a safe which housed many benefits for farmers that are about to get taken away.  

Here are just a few of the many Irresponsible Statements by Ag Minister Gerry Ritz:

1.  Manitoba Cooperator, March 24, 2011

Ritz said in Minnedosa, Manitoba, that his party “respects the vote” of farmers who back the single desk and suggested there won’t be any attempt to impose dual marketing on the  CWB unless a majority of producers vote for it.  “Until farmers make that change I’m not prepared to work arbitrarily.  They are absolutely right to believe in democracy; I do too.”

2.  Manitoba Cooperator, March 13, 2008

“We’ve got a struggling livestock industry out there that needs a lot more barley in the ground, not less, to try and bring the price down.” (said February 13, 2008, in a conference call)

3.  Manitoba Cooperator, May 12, 2011

Gerry Ritz, who hopes to continue as Canada’s agriculture minister in the newly elected Harper majority government, said last week farmers might need to pay more for grain transportation in order to get better railway service.  “We want a much more commercially based system.  The odd time it’s going to cost more but you’re going to get better service. So in the end it will be offset by less demurrage and storage and all those other things that come back to bite us.”

4.  Legislative Committee Hearing in Ottawa, November 2, 2011.                                            
(a)   “[Without the Wheat Board] there’s going to be a lot more (wheat, durum, and barley) going to market positions earlier and get us away from starting our trucks and augers at minus 40 in January.”                                                                                                                  So the Minister is saying that farmers do not have to deliver non-Board grains—flax, canola, peas etc. in bad weather conditions?  With Canada’s small logistics pipeline to the west coast, and grain companies wanting to ship even more grain west without the CWB involved in logistics planning, this statement from the Minister is a “porky” of the first degree.  Remember this statement the next time you have to start a truck or auger in bad weather.

(b)  “I’ve never been allowed to attend a board meeting….They’ve always said ‘now is not a good time, the directors don’t really want to hear from you.’  There’s a number of different reasons that I’ve been told and I was never allowed to attend a board meeting.”                                                                                                          
Letters of invitation for the Minister to meet with the CWB Directors are on file at the CWB, starting in 2008.  The last written invitation was for him to attend the Board’s meeting on Oct. 12 and 13, 2011.   

5. Senate Committee Testimony, Dec. 2011

"Farmers have moved away from wheat. They have voted with their air seeders and have grown far more canola and special crops.  They have moved away from wheat, durum and barley.  What we have seen with that slippage is 25 per cent less product on the world stage from great Canadian producers." 

Canadian exports of wheat for 2011 have actually increased according to USDA, Canadian Grain Commission, and Statistics Canada. The 2010 crop year proved to be challenging on account of severe weather which decreased all commodity acreages. Even then the decrease for 2010 was a mere 12.6% of the previous year which was an above average production year. The chart below clearly shows that there was an 8.6% increase in exports and that the 25% decrease is a fabrication by the minister.

http://www.indexmundi.com/agriculture/?country=ca&commodity=wheat&graph=exports