By Adrian Ewins
Saskatoon newsroom

While farmers struggle to break even on their returns from the market, agribusiness corporations are reaping record profits, according to a new study by the National Farmers Union.

The NFU analyzed the 2004 financial performance of 75 corporations involved in every aspect of the agriculture and food business, from oil companies and fertilizer manufacturers at one end of the chain to food retailers and restaurants at the other.

It found that 58 of the 75 corporations earned record profits, with many others near record levels. Only one lost money.

That same year, Canadian farmers lost a combined $7.7 billion on returns from the market, according to the NFU analysis.

“It’s not just that we’re suffering and they’re taking record profits,” said union president Stewart Wells. “We’re suffering because they’re taking profits.”

The study pegged farmers’ realized net income from the market (a figure that excludes government payments) at negative $10,000 per farm in 2004, the second worst on record.

The average realized net market income has averaged negative $323 per farm over the past 10 years, and been below $5,000 in 15 of the past 20 years.

As a result, farmers are going out of business, rural Canada is being depopulated and taxpayers are being forced to pay billions to support farmers.

“We don’t want to see the agribusinesses also receiving negative return on investments like Canadian farmers are,” Wells said.

“But we need to get to a place where Canadian farmers have a positive return on investment as well as the companies.”

The report said other explanations put forward to explain agriculture’s financial woes don’t hold water. For example, farmers are more efficient and productive than ever, per-unit production costs are at record low levels, food exports are at or near record high levels, global demand continues to increase and world grain consumption consistently outpaces production.

“These facts are comparable with only one explanation of the farm crisis, ” the report said. “The rewards of farmer productivity, efficiency and cost-cutting are being seized by more powerful players in the agrifood chain.”

The report goes on to describe a number of ways in which large corporations have a stranglehold over the profit margins available from food production and sales.

The Liberals were long criticized for padding their budget forecasts, to disguise the true extent of Ottawa

In mid-January, the Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities, Saskatchewan Association of Urban Municipalities and the University of Regina will be hosting a conference to examine the nuclear industry and the potential for further development of this industry in Saskatchewan. The press release promoting the conference attributes the following description to SARM president Neal Hardy: “This conference will look at all aspects of the nuclear energy industry, from mining and processing, to power generation and disposal. There are many different perspectives on the issue, and we want to explore what is best for all the people of Saskatchewan.”

SUMA president Don Schlosser sees it as an issue of economic development and job creation. He wants to see an “informed and open public discussion.” U of R vice-president Allan Cahoon wants the discussion over all energy options to be objective and based on science.

It all looks pretty good at first glance - a conference where many different perspectives are examined, where there is informed and open public discussion and where these discussions are objective and based on science.

There is only one thing wrong with this picture. The folks who developed the conference agenda forgot to invite anyone who isn’t a booster of nuclear power. So much for looking at all aspects of the industry. By failing to invite some of the very reputable scientists who have questions around the economics, safety and public policy issues around nuclear development, SARM and SUMA have shortchanged their constituencies.

So in the interest of the balance you won’t find if you fork out $150 to attend the conference, here are a few issues you will have to research on your own.

Waste disposal - reactor waste will need safe storage for hundreds of thousands of years. A few months ago, a cemetery was uncovered during a construction project in Prince Albert. People had completely forgotten it was there after about 70 years. Who will remember nuclear waste dumps in 1,000 years?

Conservation - one of the best energy options when it comes to job creation has always been conservation. How does it stack up against the job creation inherent in the nuclear industry? Where is the biggest bang for the buck? Don’t expect to find out at this conference.

Economic development - nuclear power is all about making electricity. The nuclear industry relies on a centralized, highly sophisticated technology with huge environmental and safety issues. It is controlled by a high priesthood of scientists and technocrats. The benefits accrue largely to a few shareholders of giant corporations. If you like government control, you’ll love nuclear power. This industry requires intense regulation and government oversight. The good news is that the regulators can be expected to crawl into bed with the industry in short order.

Another way to make electricity is with wind power. Generating electricity from the wind would result in benefits to a great number of rural communities and farmers all across the province. Jobs, both direct and spin-off, would be widely dispersed. Almost anyone can understand the technology. The environmental and safety issues are miniscule. The trouble is, Sask Power doesn’t appear too interested in buying the energy produced by small-scale, independent producers. Just ask the forest products industry about the problems with getting Sask Power to buy the surplus electricity it generates.

Another strong point in favor of wind power lies, oddly enough, in its relatively high cost. Partly driving that cost is a shortage of wind turbines, created by a booming demand worldwide. There is an opportunity here for a manufacturing industry in Saskatchewan, where we have a large number of companies that manufacture world-class equipment of all sorts.

I don’t deny there are points on both sides of the argument over nuclear power. By presenting only one side of the issue, SARM and SUMA have bought into the nuclear industry’s characterization of its opposition as unscientific fear-mongers. Perhaps some of the opponents should have been invited to present at the conference so the public could hear all sides and decide for itself.

(c) Paul Beingessner (306) 868-4734 phone 868-2009 fax beingessner ~at~ sasktel.net

Bolivia’s hero vows to break US shackles

On the eve of polls that could give South America its first indigenous head of state, Evo Morales talks about his gas nationalisation plans

Alfonso Daniels
Sunday December 18, 2005
The Observer

On a barren landing strip in Bolivia’s mining heartland of Oruro, hundreds of people, including miners carrying dynamite charges, stir at the sight of an approaching small plane. It’s a stampede by the time it lands, as the crowds rush down the slope to greet an emerging heavy-built man. He is Evo Morales, a 46-year-old Aymara Indian, leading candidate in today’s presidential elections and leader of a left-wing revolution that may soon engulf most of South America.

Morales is on the verge of becoming the first wholly Indian leader in Latin America. According to most polls, Morales’s advantage over his closest rival, the former conservative President Jorge Quiroga, is at least five points. Despite having little chance of an absolute majority, forcing the newly elected rightist congress to choose the new President in January, congress is expected to nominate Morales if he wins the popular vote, due to fears of civil unrest, which has toppled two centre-right Presidents in two years.

Morales is riding a wave of anger from Bolivia’s impoverished Indian majority who have not seen any benefits from years of free-market policies and the sale of the country’s natural resources by a mostly white elite to huge multinationals.

In few places is the country’s ingrained injustice as visible as in the arid region of Oruro, birthplace of the Bolivian trade union movement, whose tin mines have maintained the state for decades, while its inhabitants live in miserable mud huts. Morales was born there, before being forced by drought to move to the region of Chapare, where he later emerged as the leader of the coca farmers, launching his political career.

Morales’s first stop in Oruro is Unc

And — most important — are you excited about alternative media and willing to put in a couple of hours here and there to help it flourish?

Then this is the opportunity you’ve been waiting for….

It turns out — I just counted — there are 1,138 separate tasks involved in promoting, administering, writing, editing, designing, funding, circulating, webmastering (and, hopefully soon, broadcasting!) Briarpatch Magazine, and in our ongoing efforts to produce the best fiesty lefty rag possible, we’re looking to develop a pool of dedicated volunteers to help with one aspect or another of the process.

If you’re interested, email editor ~at~ briarpatchmagazine.com and I’ll add you to a volunteer email list. From time to time (perhaps once a month), we’ll send out a list of upcoming volunteer opportunities that you may or may not choose to help out with.

Here’s an example of a few of the tasks we might include in one of these volunteer call-outs (though I doubt any call-out would include *all* of these):

- we need someone to count laps at our swim-a-thon
- we need 2-3 people to help with the next mail-out
- we need 1-2 proofreaders to hunt typos on the morning of __
- we need someone to transcribe a recording of a debate between Tom Waits and Donald Rumsfeld
- we need someone to edit that transcript
- we need help planning a kick-ass benefit concert at the Exchange
- we need someone to upload the latest issue of the magazine to our website
- we’re painting the office and could use the assistance of a couple of amateur Picassos
etc, etc….

(Many, not all, of these tasks will be limited to folks who live in the Regina area. If you live elsewhere but have long-distance-travelling skills to offer, drop us a line…

[Signed,]
Dave Mitchell
on behalf of
the Clandestine Revolutionary Volunteer Management Committee

December 16, 2005

TheTyee.ca

Voting Green? Not so much.

If the polls are accurate about 4 percent of Canadians, possibly more, will vote for the Green Party in this election. (Last time around it was 4.3 percent, a historic high). Exactly who votes Green and for what reasons is still unclear as no one has done a publicly available survey to answer the question. But the motivation is not monolithic. There are protest voters, disgruntled NDP voters, Red Tories appalled at Stephen Harper, and Liberals angry at Paul Martin’s policies but not willing to go to the NDP. And then there are those who vote Green positively, because they assume that the Green Party of Canada is more or less like the Greens of Europe: democratic, socially and economically progressive and strong defenders of the environment.

In fact, all these categories make the assumption that the Green Party is at least, well, Green. They should take the time to be sure. In the last election I wrote, based on the policy platform on its web site, the party was right wing on social and fiscal policy and also pointed out that both the Sierra Club and Green Peace rated them below the NDP (and in most categories, below the Bloc) on environmental policies. Unfortunately, little has changed. Some things are actually worse.

Green Party leader Jim Harris, a former Tory and a motivational speaker for large corporations, is again preoccupied with running as many candidates as possible (he ran candidates in all 308 ridings in 2004). This is to ensure that there is a Green Party franchise in every riding in the country so the party’s government funding remains intact. He knows that a certain percentage of voters will vote Green no matter what - and each vote brings the party $1.75. The party received over a million dollars under election financing rules implemented for the first time in 2004. Yet, Harris has been almost invisible since the last election, has done little organizing, no membership drive, has managed to raise just over $200,000 and has paid virtually no attention to policy development.

Obey your leader

But most disturbing to many inside the party, is Harris’s authoritarian style. Many people vote Green because they assume it is more grass roots, more democratic, than the others. They would be shocked to know that the party is the most top down of any of the federal parties - and that Harris simply ignores decisions that he doesn’t agree with. The situation is so bad that half of the party’s governing council have resigned in protest or been forced out in the past eight months. Harris has not moved to replace them because, argue the dissidents, he is happy with the remaining council members who tend to support him and he does not want to risk having more people turn into troublesome dissidents.

At the 2004 AGM, members passed several constitutional amendments which were supposed to be ratified by a party-wide vote within six months. Fifteen months later, it hasn’t happened and there are no plans to hold a vote. The 2005 AGM voted to have a policy convention this fall in anticipation of a federal election. Harris simply declined to hold one, then rescheduled it for February. Now that convention has been postponed.

Recently, a party-wide binding vote was taken on the sensitive issue of revenue sharing. Members voted overwhelmingly for an option that would divide up party revenue equally between local riding associations, provincial Green Parties and the national party. Harris was strongly opposed to this option, and recently announced that the issue was more complicated than he thought and he was not going to adhere to the members’ wishes. None of this would be tolerated for a minute in any of the other federal parties. And none would simply allow half the seats on their governing council to go unfilled for months.

Hide and seek policies

The policy situation is scarcely any better. In fact, the party seems to have no written policies. A diligent search of their website reveals no platform at all. Last spring, there was a policy document entitled Platform 2005, but it has been removed. Click on “Policies” on their website and you get a statement saying they will release policies as the election unfolds. There are also some broad policy principles. But what happened to the policies the party had last year? Have they been dumped and if so, on who’s authority?

Going to the ‘Site Map’ you can connect to “Living Policies”, an innovative approach to engaging members in policy debate and development. The problem is that the man in charge of that process was fired by Harris last winter and never replaced because Harris and his advisors (one of them an operative formerly with the Alliance Party) thought the whole exercise a waste of time. The 300 or so people engaged in the process were left with no moderator. The page highlights “Planks in the works” and lists twelve policy areas. But for ten of these policy areas, the last updates were made as far back as January and no later than June of this year. The page has no actual policies, just rudimentary brainstorming.

There is a strong suspicion from some of those who resigned from the council, that Harris simply removed reference to party policies from the website because they caused him so much grief in the last election. You can see why. Enhanced food banks to solve poverty, more volunteerism instead of more money for social programs, reduced taxes on corporate income and investment, rejection of strong environmental laws and strong enforcement in favour of so-called “voluntary compliance” by corporate polluters. These 2004 policies were ridiculed as badly thought out, not costed and clearly contradictory of the Charter of the Global Greens which the party has adopted as its guiding principles.

The party is now issuing a news release with a new policy almost everyday. Some actually have a progressive tilt, but they are almost universally vague, hastily formulated, and have no roots in any party deliberations.

I expect that many people in BC intend to vote Green for the same reason they did last time: the Green Party brand implies a lot of very positive sentiment and progressive history. Many others will make little distinction between the Harris Green Party and the provincial Greens who had a progressive platform in the last provincial election. Green voters often think of themselves as amongst the most principled voters in any election. If they are serious about this claim, they should be wary of voting for Jim Harris - and what remains of the Green Party.

Murray Dobbin writes his ‘State of the Nation’ column twice a month for The Tyee.

‘There’s a war out there and we have to win,’ says Sally Pipes, the head of San Francisco’s Pacific Research Institute and an alumna of Canada’s Fraser Institute, another right-wing think-tank.”

Advocates of two-tier health care prepare to take on medicare, confident that now they can win, Thomas Walkom reports

The Toronto Star Nov. 26, 2005. 11:45 AM

THOMAS WALKOM
NATIONAL AFFAIRS WRITER

VANCOUVER

Imagine if Sunni insurgents decided to face down the greatest power on earth with a human chain of non-violent resistance. Or if Hamas threw human shields rather than human bombs at Israel.

This is the kind of movement that the four members of the Christian Peacemaker Teams currently held hostage in Iraq are trying to build, and it’s precisely the model that the peace movement should have, but didn’t, take as its strategy for challenging the Bush Administration and its imperial ambitions after the invasion. Instead, less than a dozen CPTers have stood virtually alone against 150,000 “coalition forces” and an equally violent and unscrupulous insurgency–a scandal whose reflection on the movement is every bit as devastating as Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo are for the US army.

It didn’t have to be this way. The peace movement did not have to settle for the kind of “cheap activism” (as one of the hostages described his activities before coming to Iraq) that has come to see periodic protests in New York or Washington DC as a legitimate substitute for the hard work of facing off against the violence of empire and occupation on the ground. There was a moment after the invasion, before the insurgency took root, when the peace movement could have made a difference in Iraq. Instead of writing off Iraq as lost to Cheney and Rumsfeld, expending energy in tirades against American empire–when is the last time that an anti-imperialist movement ever succeeded in the West?–or worse, actively supporting violent insurgency at the very moment other peace activists have been held hostage (as have some of the most senior members of the movement), the movement could have marshaled its resources and helped Iraqis build a non-violent movement of resistance against both occupation and the violence and hatred it breeds.

This is why, I believe, CPT went to Iraq, and why it’s work as been so important in other countries, from Colombia to the Occupied Territories. As I’ve seen many times in Palestine, with a few dedicated people, CPT has brought powerful results in the communities in which they work. To begin with, they serve as first person “witnesses” to the violence of the occupation and war. This is absolutely crucial, because one of the key dynamics that allow both to continue unhindered is the ability of governments, guerrillas, and occupiers to hide the truth from the world.

Second, they act as a barrier between the occupied and the occupier. The death of International Solidarity Movement activist Rachel Corrie (killed by an Israeli bulldozer in 2003) is perhaps the most dramatic example of the dangers faced by activists; but it is in the less dramatic but equally dangerous daily encounters between civilians and soldiers that I’ve seen CPT prove its worth. It’s hard to count how many times I’ve seen CPT members get in between Israeli soldiers and Palestinian civilians–often too young, old or infirm to protect themselves–and stop an act of violence that would have scarred both perpetrator and victim for the rest of their lives. Indeed, it is precisely because CPT acts on the recognition of and desire to preserve the humanity of both the occupier and occupied, that it has been able to work small miracles in the Occupied Territories, and why it has made many friends in Iraq despite its small presence.

As one of the founders of the Muslim Peacemaker Team in Iraq explained, “they brought Shias, Muslims and Sunnis together. They help us. We were inspired by their action to travel all these thousands of miles across the ocean to come here in Iraq and speak about peace, promote nonviolence. And they are so steady and consistent in visiting the same place they did visit many times just to lay down their sense of community and friendship.”

Sadly, CPT has too rarely been joined by other activists willing to make the same commitment. This isn’t for lack of an understanding of the importance of such an enterprise. As a senior member of United For Peace and Justice remarked to me in the aftermath of the US invasion, “Imagine if thousands of college students flooded Iraq, witnessing what was going on, helping build a non-violent movement, and came home to tell Americans the truth about the occupation.” Needless to say, UFPJ didn’t put much energy into creating such a program (although it was and remains stretched in many directions just trying to manage the programs and actions it has organized, but my point is that the movement would have done well to make the kind of activities CPT has been involved in more of a priority).

Similarly, over one hundred European activists were supposed to join a “peace caravan” to Iraq on the first anniversary of the invasion. They canceled because of security concerns, months before the first activist was targeted by insurgents, when CPT and the few dozen other international activists in Iraq (like those of Ponte per Baghdad and Occupation Watch, which did sponsor more short term delegations by groups like Code Pink, Global Exchange, and UFPJ) were moving around openly, meeting with grass roots and religious leaders on good days and helping carry the wounded out of Falluja and Najaf when the US and UK laid siege to those towns.

But if peace activists were largely absent from Iraq, lots of young republicans left their cushy internships at the American Enterprise Institute or Heritage Foundation, or consulting companies, to make their bones inside the Green Zone. And well over 190,000 young Americans have had little choice but to spend their days and nights protecting it. As for Iraqis, the leaders of the various factions opposed to the occupation would do well to take to heart the example of the CPT members now held hostage.

My last images of the Christian Peacemaker Teams in Baghdad was of their holding a vigil in Tahrir Square to protest against the detention and mistreatment of Iraqis by the US military in Abu Ghraib. This was in late March 2004, months before anyone in the United States had even heard of Abu Ghraib, or bothered to consider how our armed forces were treating detainees in the war on terror. But CPT knew full well what was going on in Abu Ghraib–that’s why they were in Iraq, to “witness” the realities of the occupation–and they were determined to make sure that the Iraqis saw that there were Americans, and westerners more broadly, who were willing to put their bodies on the line to protest against such abuses. It’s too bad that it’s taken this tragedy to get the rest of us to listen.

Mr. LeVine is professor of modern Middle Eastern history, culture, and Islamic studies at the University of California, Irvine, and author of the forthcoming books: Why They Don’t Hate Us: Lifting the Veil on the Axis of Evil; and Overthrowing Geography: Jaffa, Tel Aviv and the Struggle for Palestine, 1880-1948. He is also a contributor, with Viggo Mortensen and Pilar Perez, to Twilight of Empire: Responses to Occupation.

At least 15 residents were killed and dozens wounded by United Nations troops during incursions in the zone of Cit

by John Conway
prairie dog

Paul Martin set the trap, and Harper and Layton sprung it on themselves. (Duceppe doesn’t really care very much, since he is set to sweep Quebec no matter when the election occurs.) Martin wanted an election. He didn’t want to wait until 30 days after the final Gomery report, as he promised. The first Gomery hit sank the Liberals briefly in the polls, but they quickly recovered. They might not have recovered so quickly after the second hit, especially if the economy begins to sag. With current poll results comparable to the last election, with the economy doing very well, and with a large surplus allowing a blizzard of spending announcements, Liberals were in fact very eager to go now. Harper and Layton gave them what they wanted. Dumb, very dumb.

And try as they might, Harper and Layton have not been able to blame the Liberals for the unwanted election. It was, after all, combined Opposition support for a non-confidence motion that brought the government down. No amount of spinning and dipsy-doodling can change that fundamental fact.

The media are all agog about the magical “time for a change” factor. According to the polls, 54 percent of Canadians say it is time for a change. Well, in the last election 57 percent said it was time for a change and we got a Liberal minority government. That’s why the Liberals are not worried about the alleged “time for a change” factor - it is smaller than last time and the voters still don’t trust Harper enough to make him prime minister. The Liberals are counting on the “fear of Harper’s right-wing agenda” to trump any “time for a change” yearnings.

And look what Harper did. On Day One he promised a free vote in the House of Commons to rescind the same sex marriage law. If the law is rescinded, Harper promises, those already in lawful same sex marriages will not have them annulled. But no new same sex marriages will be lawful. What lunacy! And this man wants to be prime minister. First, Harper would have to use the notwithstanding clause to rescind the law, since the courts have already ruled such a ban is a Charter violation. Then we will have the ridiculous anomaly of an island of legal same sex marriages - enjoying all the rights, benefits and privileges of legal marriage - existing in a sea of traditional heterosexual marriages with a bunch of outcast, unlawful same sex partnerships crying out for justice. Talk about intolerance masking as stupidity (or is it stupidity masking as intolerance?).

Then on Day Two Harper revealed he didn’t understand the Canadian constitution by promising a special prosecutor to go after the crooks in government. Stephen, we are not part of the U.S. quite yet, despite your (yes, I’ll say it) “secret agenda” to lead us into that warm embrace. The criminal law is a federal responsibility, but its administration is provincial (go back to first year political science, Stephen).

This is why Harper is so endearing. He is an honest and committed right-wing, pro-American ideologue, a true believer with deep religious convictions. Inevitably, it seems, he blurts out what he really believes from time to time (despite the best efforts of his handlers). It is a sad day for Canadian politics when we have to admit that the Liberal sleaze factory is counting on Harper’s honesty about his right-wing convictions to help Paul Martin cling to power.

Paul Martin, on the other hand, is the Big Sleaze of Canadian politics. He accused Harper, Layton and Duceppe of being driven by ambition, the naked lust for power (I think he called it “naked ambition.”) This is a rather bizarre smear from the man who spent ten years lusting after his leader’s job, stabbing him in the back, trying to orchestrate ouster after ouster, and finally succeeding in pushing him from office. Martin is the epitome of power lust, with a dangerous sense of power entitlement.

For Canadians it is a tough choice. Do you elect a dedicated right-winger like Harper, and suffer from his principled right-wing rampage should he win, including his zealous implementation of rule by big business? Or do you stay with the Big Sleaze who will - as Liberals have from time immemorial - govern more or less opportunistically (if the polls go right, the Liberals go right; if the polls go left, the Liberals go left), while deftly carrying out instructions from big business with aplomb and a smile?

The NDP’s Smilin’ Jack Layton was in a tough spot. Tory charges of propping up the Liberals were hurting, and even many in his own party were becoming uncomfortable with the situation. Layton’s problem is that the NDP is doing well in the polls - 20 percent - but in a hard fought, polarized campaign between the Liberals and the Tories, the NDP vote is at risk. The Liberals, while attacking Harper’s right-wing agenda, will again squeeze left during the campaign, hoping to snap up the soft NDP vote, especially in Ontario and B.C. If soft NDP voters become frightened enough of a Harper victory, they will bolt in large numbers to the Liberals to stop Harper. So Jack’s smile is a little tight, as deep worry lines play on his face.

Meanwhile, George Bush’s personal emissary to Canada, former U.S. ambassador Paul Cellucci is again intruding into Canadian politics, warning Canadian politicians not to “kick the hell out of the president,” particularly fingering the Liberals for past sins. The message is clear: George Bush wants Canadians to vote Harper. Big mistake, Paul, you just helped guarantee a Liberal victory.

The outcome, at this point, is pretty much a foregone conclusion: another Liberal minority government. The big issue is will the NDP pick up enough seats to give the Liberals a secure survival edge in the House of Commons? If so, then the NDP will squeeze a lot more out of the Liberals than they have been able to so far. And the NDP will have the power to decide when the next election will be….more or less.

Of course, in elections we know that shit happens. Martin could stumble badly. Harper’s handlers might be able to keep him from being too honest. Ralph Klein might keep his big mouth shut. Harper just might accidentally win the largest bloc of seats and form a minority government.

Happily, though, there is one thing we can count on. After the election one or the other of Harper or Martin will be gone. And that is something to look forward to (or maybe not, the replacement might be worse).

Conway is a University of Regina political sociologist and the author of The West: The History of a Region in Confederation.