Bill 43 passed?

[grassfarmer]

I assume that with the failure of the move to stall bill 43 it has in fact passed third reading and will become law? I was was waiting for farmers_son to mention the outcome on here.
I would like to know how much producer checkoff money ABP spent on their opposition campaign on this issue. Was it really half a million dollars as someone suggested to me? How could they spend that kind of money without even asking the producers they purport to represent what they wanted?
Good job producers now have the chance to vote with their feet.

[per]

According to the Leg website it passed and had royal accent yesterday.

[farmers_son]

I think the check off issue is not finished yet.

Mark my words and I am going on record with this...within one year the province will pass more legislation directing that a new mandatory check off from beef, pork and lamb will go to ALMA. The check off may be quite a bit more than what we have been used to in the past.

The Stelmach government is going to look to producers to fund ALMA, I believe that will happen. ALMA costs at least $30 million a year, that money is going to come from you and me. It may not be a check off on cattle sold but we are going to end up paying for ALMA one way or another. It may be a tax on mandatory tags or fees to be allowed to sell our cattle.

And really...who is going to stop Government from doing whatever they please? They have just demonstrated they can do as they wish using their divide and conquer tactics. The power is all theirs.

Who is going to stand up to Government now? After this I think no cattle organization will dare stand up to the Stelmach Government for fear of vicious reprisals.

2010 is when a lot of the already announced mandatory aspects of ALMA kick in. However I do not think we have the whole story. The ALMA board is just getting started. Kee Jim and friends on the ALMA board have only just begun to reshape the cattle industry so he makes even more money.

Bill 43 was just a piece of a larger strategy. With ABP and Alberta Pork and producer representation out of the way ALMA is positioned to really start telling us how we are going to run farms and ranchers.

[grassfarmer]

Sounds like fear-mongering to me farmers_son. You make it sound like the Government made ABP an illegal organisation. What they actually did was allow producers to choose whether to continue to direct their checkoff to ABP or ask for a refund which they might redirect elsewhere. The Government did not take one cent or any power away from ABP - they allowed producers to make these decisions.
What a bunch of hypocracy from ABP - against anything mandatory - except producer funding of their extravagant spending organisation. That it what this battle was really about - keeping ABP running in the lavish manner it has become accustomed to. It had nothing to do with representing producers - proof of that comes from the fact they never asked producers what their opinion on the issue was before launching a massive,expensive and misdirected campaign of opposition. If as you like to claim ABP best represents producers interests then you have nothing to fear - producers will leave their levy monies with ABP.

[farmers_son]

If you read my comments I said I believe ABPs mandatory check off will be replaced by a mandatory check off or some other form of required producer funding to ALMA. That is not fear mongering however it is my opinion. You can agree or disagree. Time will tell if I am right.

The real issue with Bill 43 was that Government would not allow producers to decide the future of the check off themselves, Government decided that for the industry. Producers had previously voted through a plebiscite to have a non refundable check off. In my opinion Government overstepped its bounds by cancelling that majority vote and just deciding the issue without asking producers again. But get used to that. We are going to see more Government knows best and Government telling us what we are going to have to do while producers have no say.

In my opinion, the Stelmach Government and ALMA is going to be making a lot more decisions for us or to us depending upon your point of view. I suppose some producers will welcome that degree of Government involvement in our industry. Myself I am very concerned.

I do not see where this government is the friend of the cow calf producer and I really seriously question how any benefits from the ALMStrategy will ever make it down to the cow calf producer level. We will see more mandatory, more regulation and no more money. You can call that fear mongering if you want...I call it getting real with where this government and their appointed ALMA Board is taking our, and it is our not their, industry.

[farmers_son]

Let me explain it like this.

In 1994 there was a plebiscite on the non refundable check off. Think of it as a hockey game with producers on both sides of the issue. In that game the non refundable check off side won by a goal and our cattle organization has operated on the basis of that producer plebiscite vote since then.

The check off question came up again. As in 1994 there were producers on both sides of the issue and they were lined up at center ice ready to decide the game. But this time Stelmach and Groeneveld are the referees. Instead of dropping the puck the referees simply declare the winner. The players are irrelevant. The producers are irrelevant. The referees decided the game.

And that to me describes the game we are in now. The referees are making up new rules as they wish and you either play the game by their rules or you can get off the ice. It is no longer the players game. Hockey is not going to be as much fun as it used to be and soon the only players left on the ice will be the ones the referees want. Probably that will be the biggest players but they will soon realize that with the refs on their side that they do not have to skate very hard. Soon the game is no longer competitive.

Letting the referees decide the outcome of the game is not in anyone’s best interest, not the fans, not the players, no ones. Yet that is what is happening to the cattle industry with this Government.

The refs need to be told it is not their game. Yet anyone who tells them that is kicked out of the arena.

[BFW]

FS to further your analogy, I prefer to
think that the league has removed the
salary cap to allow team owners to run
their teams in the most competitive manner
possible. The players, league,and fans are
in for a treat here.

[grassfarmer]

Don't know if you have a welding shop on your place farmers_son but you are certainly good at fabrication.

You say "The check off question came up again. As in 1994 there were producers on both sides of the issue and they were lined up at center ice ready to decide the game. But this time Stelmach and Groeneveld are the referees. Instead of dropping the puck the referees simply declare the winner. The players are irrelevant. The producers are irrelevant. The referees decided the game."

Truth is the check off question came up repeatedly in recent years and there were producers on both sides of the issue but the self appointed referees - the ABP - decided there was going to be no hockey game. Time and again producers were refused the right to play on this issue. To say that we were poised to have a plebiscite on the issue based on producer demands for it are quite false. The only time ABP mentioned a plebiscite was in early April 2009 when they got wind that the Ag minister was going to move on this issue. This was nothing more than a desperate last minute attempt to save their little empire. What you accuse the Government of in your last paragraph is exactly how ABP the have treated producers "The producers are irrelevant. The referees (ABP)decided the game."

[per]

I would think your time would be better spent now convincing the taxpayers why the ABP is the best place to park the money. That should only require listening to your constituents (all of them) and performing up to reasonable expectations. Also might want to figure out what resources will not stay and why and where it will go and adjust your budget accordingly. You still have a huge advantage as the ABP is the default and it takes interest and motivation to get the check off refunded.