NFU-O hearing raises questions and admonishments

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Election process still unclear, agriculture Tribunal member tells the general farm organization’s representatives

photo: Ann Slater

Comments

When you're a "regular" at any sort, type, or kind of hearing, you get to know that when the veins on the neck of a hearing panelist start to bulge, you're about 3 seconds away from being yelled at. Every good lawyer knows this, and acts accordingly - the NFU, apparently, does not. In addition, if the "much work" done for Ontario by the NFU national office is represented by the type of shoddy "research" reports the NFU national office periodically undertakes, Ontario farmers would be well-served if the NFU doesn't get re-accredited. At least Mr. McGivern and his people represent the next generation of Ontario's farmers, while the NFU is in a time warp, pretending that both supply management and the Canadian Wheat Board can, and should, be saved.

Stephen Thompson, Clinton ON

Still NFU

Comment modified by editor

Are the election practises of OFA beyond reproach? Where else in a democracy political or otherwise do you elect the president first and the failing participants simply slide down the election ballot pole until they stick in a lessor position.

How does this incestuous process of electing exclusively from within ever bring in new blood especially in a time of need or avoid social popularity contests as reward for time served?

Benevolent dictators often referred to in history as eloquent just in time leaders have been born from just such needed new blood circumstances.

Head office selection and closed house process greatly takes away from the "will of the people" (read as paying members) to lead from the ground up or accountability to flow from the top down.

I seem to remember some time ago a call from Ontario agricultural sectors for operational audits... a cry manifest by motions of resolution from the ground up for accountability from the top down

AMEN on your post. there is a lot of sin in these organizations

The NFU is truly at a cross roads, as they have a large percentage of younger farmers who have never been able to enter supply management, they have no connection to it and little if any support for it, these younger farmers or 2nd career farmers are highly motivated, filled with energy and are keen to sell their farm products direct to the public. The problem is that the NFU is an OXY-MORON, on one hand they want to support these young farmers but only if they are content raising a few chickens and turkeys and keep it low key or if they want to grow some veggies. Supply management has become an elite club, a monoply, a cartel and they cant even properly defend them self's just last week
Mr.Gould President of the Dairy Farmers of Ontario was on SUN TV and just made a fool of him self with foolish rhetoric about how great supply management is, its only great for those who own the quota not the rest of the farm community or the consumers who are forced to pay the higher prices required so that farmers can pay off their quota.

you cant support supply management on one hand then other hand say you want to bring young people in to agriculture, this 50 year old system is out dated and out of touch and causes major underlying issues such as inflated land values which would not be supported if supply managed farmers where not supported in the manner they are now.

In my opinion there is no way in good faith that the tribunial can reaccredit the NFU
Sean McGivern
Practicial Farmers of Ontario

www.practicalfarmersontario.ca

Every farm organization is chock-full of members under the age of 40 who have no use for supply management, for all the reasons you outlined above, as well as the obvious fact that supply management pits farmers against each other - well, except possibly for the CFFO, an organization which arguably wouldn't exist if it didn't have quota to defend. Unfortunately, all of the existing farm groups, and all of the supply managed organizations (as exemplified by Mr. Gould) are paying absolutely no attention to younger, non-supply managed farmers, and they are especially paying absolutely no attention to the pitting of farmer against farmer caused by supply management. They will all pay dearly for their sins, and it appears the NFU may be the first to pay the price.

Stephen Thompson, Clinton ON

You are correct mr Thompson, but let us hope the young 40 year old farmere learns something from the screwed up ontario farm organizations, lets not set up a new group of greedy farmers and farmleaders that will take 50 more years to clean house. We should be glad the tribunal is being a watchdog, but it will be interesting how they treat ofa and cffo . When you have worked at the county level as director it is not a cheap shoot to say you are fed up with greedy self centered leadership . Farmers know they dont come out tomeetings and thes organizations are a laughing stock
I am deeply disappointed in nfu when we find that ontario has 50% of total membership and this was hidden from us. The big question now is , will we see truthfull factual story on ofa who is far from perfect. We wont join the presnt organizations in 2013

I've been a Director with the Huron County Federation of Agriculture (HCFA) for well-over 20 years, and have enjoyed every minute of it because those issues which we can't resolve, get left outside the door, and properly so. I'm not so happy with the OFA because it appears too many OFA Directors allow (unlike HCFA Directors) single issues involving their own farm(s) to impair their judgement, and substantially lessen their ability to be Directors - in other words, when you are a Director, you should be a Director, not just an advocate for what you (often mistakenly) believe to be in the best interests of your own farm.

Stephen Thompson, Clinton ON

You were a director of the HCFA for over 20 years?

As a director, did you represent EVERY commodity producer with the same due respect?

Or were an advocate for your own agenda. I.E. supply management dismantlement.

Yes, I did, and I do, represent all of our membership, and the rest of our Directors do likewise. We don't ever discuss supply management because we know it pits farmer against farmer and we don't need to divide our organization. In exactly the same way we try to steer clear of ethanol, and green energy, also for exactly the same reasons. Our Director from the Grain Farmers knows full well to not boast about ethanol, because he/she will get pounded into the ground by our Directors from the hog producers and the cattle producers. Our Board represents many interests, many talents and abilities, it has many talented individuals with a myriad of strong personal beliefs, and we work because of our common strengths.

Stephen Thompson, Clinton ON

That,s the problem right there.
The people should not belong to a group if they have one part of the group they stick up for and make believe that they are for everyone.
You can,t go around blaming a group and sit on a board that is there to help everyone get the best deal, there is no common sense in their reasoning.
That in the end is why this country food supply is so screwed up.

If your position was to be believed, we'd never have a group of farmers able to accomplish anything because we all have conflicts of interest about something. Our hog and livestock representatives bring a lot to our Board, even though they disagree fundamentally with the point of view about ethanol espoused by the Grain Farmers of Ontario, and the GFO representative on our Board. There are oodles of issues to tackle without endlessly re-hashing the food/fuel debate, so we don't - and the same thing goes for supply management, and even alternative energy.

Stephen Thompson, Clinton ON

If a person wants to be a director for any organization and talks the talk, then he needs to walk the walk in public and in private life.

And just exactly how many Boards of Directors are the beneficiaries of your wisdom? - I'd be guessing none.

Stephen Thompson, Clinton ON

On the subject of boards there is one who control all the rest of the pawns.

Are you saying the younger farmers joined NFU instead of OFA and now disgruntled. Our GFOs are no different than goverment it is a sign of the times things have to get worse before getting better. The problem with this many lives and farms will be screwed in the process

As reported Ms. Field has her facts wrong, yet she is using this information to determine the outcome of a hearing. This tribunal has ignored documentation provided them disputing claims they still cling too. They do not even acknowledge material demonstrating that previous testimony around these claims was often aprocryphal at best. Very sad to see such abuse of the system by those charged with overseeing it.

Your comments represent exactly why the NFU got admonished - if the NFU wants to be an organization capable of representing this century's farmers, they need to learn to stop blaming everyone else for everything. More to the point, if you knew what you were talking about, and had something to say, you'd not only point out just exactly what errors in fact, or in law, were made by Ms. Field, you'd proudly indentify yourself.

Stephen Thompson, Clinton ON

However, I personally wrote the Tribunal after media reports surfaced about testimony given to it. When I didn't even received "a thank you for your response" response from them, I re-sent the letter. Still no response. Subsequently I sent a follow up letter after the tribunal decision was released to the Tribunal, the Minister and the Opposition Ag critics. Nothing. Here is a letter pointing out, with factual back up, why sworn testimony was not only not correct, but perhaps incorrect testimony was knowingly given- and no response or follow up? None at all. Not even to see if I am a crackpot or not and need monitoring. Instead there was nothing but crickets chirping.

If you read the tribunal's decision they still used some of this very suspect testimony. I don't care what side of the issues you are on- that should be cause for concern for every farmer in Ontario. Call me names, insult me, do your usual shtick, but something very odd is going on with all of these tribunal decisions. Payback for questioning the Green Energy Act or something - I don't know, but something is off.

For your comments and concerns to have any evidentiary value, you would normally be required to be sworn, and be subject to cross-examination. Anything else is, and must be, ignored when any Tribunal makes its decision, and it apparently was. With respect, if you had followed the normal procedures for giving evidentiary testimony, especially opinion evidence, you might have had a chance of being heard, but since you didn't, you weren't - and that's the way it should, and must, be.

Stephen Thompson, Clinton ON

how do you know people have given false testimony until after they have given it and it was reported upon in the media. As soon as it was clear that happened I contacted the Tribunal. For it to have any credibility the Tribunal officiers should have investigated if false testimony was given, at the very least, before they determined if the testimony was of value and used it in their final decision. To do that I should have been contacted and if necessary sworn to give testimony. Yet nothing, absolutely nothing was done. Not a single solitary thing. Not even a thank for your letter now kindly go away. Not even an attempt to find out if I was just a crackpot. This leads me to believe something rather odd and out of line is going on.

I would be very interested to know what kind of false testimony the tribunial heard and what the correct information is ???
please do enlighten us all ???

Sean McGivern

to be valid, we need to see published documents such as Hearing transcripts, and a link to documents which can be validated as having been published by the organization supposedly making the false statement - for example we need to be able to verify, for example, "here's where so and so said this at the Tribunal" and also be able to verify, "here's the link to the documents on the organization's website" which would indicate a contradiction. Please, do not allow this to degenerate into hearsay - any "evidence" offered, must be able to be validated by reference to public documents.

Stephen Thompson, Clinton ON

are you for real where do you get your information ???

I would love to know what incorrect information the tribunial in cling to ?

NFU-O in Ontario, can pass a policy at its yearly Ont AGM, it can pass with full support but for it to be policy it must be voted on by the National Organization known as NFU where it can be defected.

2ndly Ontario has 3 seats on the national NFU board yet it has almost three and half times as many more members as does Sask.

The whole organization is set up to be run as an interest group for western farmers paid for by Ontario farmers.

it should also be noted the national office is in Sask. when almost 70% of the national membership is in Ontario, once again it goes to prove, its western centric and not a Provincial farm Organization.

This will be interesting to see how the wording will play out. At any given time and in writing recently OFA (for this example) can and will alternate between the representation of "agricultural land" and " paying members.

I would hope those creating this new contractual wording would know the difference and get it right.

Yes it might be hard to explain to a representative organization they can't have it both ways on a whim.

There is young farmers going into the family dairy farm to help it get bigger and hopefully reap the benifits of the price of milk, quota and cash crop to buy more-more -more land. The young farmers are not going to get started farming unless they have a backer. the price of land , they are not making any more land just clearing all the woods and wetlands. Its going to be a tough battle doesn,t matter how you look at it, time a changing and the big greedy corperations want it all and will step on the little guy any way they can.
Who ever going to come up with a solution is going to have a mighty big pair of boots.

The NFU hasn't reformed anything at all, they still dont have their own policy book and they still can't pass policy unless the National Organization votes on it at there National annual AGM and it passes. The NFU in Ontario is not a stand alone organization they are purely a direct branch of the NFU National Office.

Had I and a few other NFU directors not resigned and blown the top off this whole situation, the NFU-O would still be operating in the same fashion today with out any one ever having known.

..... its a shame because there are so many real Ontario farm issues that need hard working people working on them.

The NFU would not need to follow the FBR rules if they didnt ask to be accredited, but they did become accredited and there for they have agreed to follow the rules of the FBR program.

should they chose to no longer be an FBR organization they can do what ever they want and i would suggest that this is the path they take because following the rules seems very difficult for them to do....

I want to be clear that ........ it was only an elite few who know all of this and were running the show from behind the scenes. several times myself and other directors tried very hard to work with the organization to rectify these problems that have prevented the NFU from being reaccredited, but they thought they were above the law, we even hired a lawry to tell them they were not meeting the requiresments all fell on deff ears.

In the past the NFU has done some great work but all of this is such a horrible blemish on the organization and so unnessary, when it all could of been so easily corrected.

I am a Past President and a founding board member fo the NFU-O, i am now the current President of the PFO and an active crop and livestock farmer in Grey County

Sean McGivern
Practical Farmers of Ontario

www.practicalfarmersontario.ca

Comment modified by editors

It is almost comical watching so many people take stabs at supply management.If you can buy cash crop land for 15,ooo an arce,then you can get in to dairy farming.
Who in their right mind would want to belong to PFO

You most-certainly are NOT a non-supply managed farmer under the age of 40, because if you were, you wouldn't be so smug about what is little more than an abuse of privelege by the very-few at the expense of very-many. And you're right, the situation is comical, not for the reasons you offer, but because now dairy and poultry farmers can't boast about universal support for supply management in the farm community. The unvarnished fact of the matter is that when a general farm organization is formed with the stated purpose of "doing something about supply management", the status quo of supply management is no longer acceptable, nor even an option, even in the farm community.

Stephen Thompson, Clinton ON

Everything costs more in Canada.Till there is a level playing field only a person with no brains would suggest getting rid of supply management.People like yourself must be totally on a mission to destroy supply management.Maybe you should go farm in another country if you do not like what Canada has to offer.That is what people do they move to a supposed land of opportunity when the feel they are being jaded

In case you have forgotten, DFO spent almost 40 years as one of the principal architects of a highly-successful campaign to persuade consumers, politicians, and consumer rights groups, there was cross-border retail price equivalency for dairy products. Throughout that almost 40-year period, DFO, and the dairy industry, produced study, after study, after study, all purporting to show cross-border retail price equivalency, and then (quite successfully) used these studies to claim that supply management not only didn't cost the taxpayer anything, it didn't cost consumers anything either. Yet, DFO abruptly, and forever, turned its back on this highly-succesful campaign when, in late 2010, they released figures showing that Ontario consumers were paying almost 38% more for milk than US consumers, and that the farm gate price of milk in Ontario was within pennies per liter of the US retail price. What's worse is the realization that, since they are highly-skilled, and very-experienced, public relations experts, the only way DFO would have ever released such damning numbers, is if they truly believed the imbalance was only going to get even worse. If they had believed that this almost 38% figure would have been under 15% in six months time, they would have waited for six months to release their information. The truly disengenous thing about DFO's "about-face" is that they would lead consumers to believe that supply management is just as good for them when they pay almost 38% more, as they were when, for almost 40 years, they were supposedly paying nothing more - and that's a mathmatical impossibility. What's truly insulting is to see DFO, and the rest of the dairy industry, including seemingly yourself, to, all-of-a-sudden, become completely dismissive about the importance of cross border retail price equivalency when it was so vitally important for almost 4 decades. In other words, DFO, and the rest of the dairy industry, are now caught in a logic trap of their own making because they can't (and won't) answer the simple question - "If cross border retail price equivalency isn't important now, then why was it so vitally-important for the last 40 years". The second matter that you, and the rest of the industry, treat dismissively is that even though "everything" might cost more in Canada, you ignore the fairly-obvious proposition that while milk may cost almost 38% more here, it is highly unlikely that a head of lettuce, a steak, or a pork chop costs anywhere near 38% more in Canada, leaving the substantial cross-border price imbalance for milk, entirely due to supply management. In short, the only "jaded" people anywhere on the horizion, are those people in the dairy industry, including possibly yourself, who have conveniently forgotten what they claimed for 40 years, and who are now trying very-hard to forget they ever claimed it.

Stephen Thompson, Clinton ON

Obviously you are so upset with DFO.Lets make some things clear
I was never a leader at DFO
I have always claimed that dairy products cost more in Canada.
You should do a survey on cross border before you claim to KNOW it all
I have done cross border comparisons for years and you would be surprised at the amount of products that are way out of line compared to Ontario.
Don't paint with such a broad brush
John Van Dyk

With respect, you, and every other dairy farmer, should be furious at DFO for, almost literally overnight, going from boasting about cross-border retail price equivalency, as they had been doing for almost 40 years, to trying to make us believe that supply management is just as good for consumers when they pay almost 38% more than US consumers, as it was when they were supposedly paying nothing more. And to look at it realistically, this cross-border retail price equivalency was the "candy" that mollified politicians and consumer groups for almost 40 years, and now without any semblance of that equivalency, neither politicians nor consumer groups have any reason to be mollified any longer. In other words, I'm suggesting to you that DFO "pulled the rug" out from underneath dairy farmers (and everyone else) by not being forthright about what the lack of cross-border retail price equivalency means in terms of political and consumer support for supply management. In short, DFO's attempt (with the apparently complete support of dairy farmers) to have it both ways is a perfect illustration of why, even in the farm community, supply management is not well-liked and will not be missed. Finally, if you have "always" claimed that dairy products cost more in Canada, why were you so quiet, and where were your letters to Better Farming and/or the Ontario Farmer, when DFO spent the better part of 40 years claiming otherwise?

Stephen Thompson, Clinton ON

It is too bad you are so misinformed Supply Management is not going away.In fact it is only going to become a stronger mechanism in Canada.The argument that you use is absolutely false that it pits farmer against farmer when it comes to land price.Lets take farmers who sell corn.there profit before land cost or rental can be in the range of 500-1000 dollars an acre.
It seems farmers like yourself just are angry anytime a supply managed farmer does buy land.
John Van Dyk

Only some one with no contact with reality would be so foolish to say supply management is here to stay, its on its way out the door and its going to be a plunder because the supply managed boards knew for a decade it was coming to a end and have not done a single thing about, shame on these farm leaders for leading their farmers down a path of lies and false hopes. if your in the supply managed sectors and believe your safe to continue buying quota and thinking its never going to end your setting your self up for some big troubles a head.

supply managed boards are going to have act reactive since they havent been smart enough to act proactive ...

Sean McGivern
PFO

When former federal ag Minister, Chuck Strahl, asked supply management leaders what their "Plan B" was in case supply management ended, not only did they not have a Plan B, they didn't even understand the concept. In business, not being able to understand the concept of "Plan B", always eventually results in the "deer in the headlights" situation.

Stephen Thompson, Clinton ON

Nobody is saying supply management is perfect but with the right leadership I am only positive about the future.Only farmers like yourself like to listen to all the Capitalists of the world and try to talk all doom and gloom because it makes you feel good.
John Van Dyk

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