The federal government says it plans to review the $8-billion sale of Canadian-based grain-handling firm Viterra to a European-based conglomerate.
sigh
We’re gonna be reliving and regretting Harper’s sale of the Canadian Wheat Board for decades to come.
Farmers should have known it was a scam when the board wasn’t broken up, just privatized. “Oh yes, you can now sell to anyone! But the market is now dominated by this private quasi-monopoly…”
I mean, they also should have known that competition wasn’t going to meaningfully increase the prices they were getting, since grain buyers are middle-men, but people in general have a hard time learning from outside contexts.
Farmers should have known it was a scam when the board wasn’t broken up, just privatized.
That part was definitely strange. When Ontario gave up its single desk the Ontario Wheat Board (now Grain Farmers of Ontario) stayed the course, just without the single desk requirement. The pool is still active if one chooses to join.
The CWB didn’t even need to be broken up. It could have continued as normal, except without the single desk requirement.
Yep. All the arguments from the time of how the free market will be better, keep aging like milk, as moves like this progressively whittle down any semblance of competition.
keep aging like milk
Milk may not be the best analogy. Harper and gang was keen to keep its protectionist measures in place. If you recall, Bernier left the party because he wanted to do away with milk’s protectionist system and couldn’t get any support from within the CPC, thus creating his own party. Which too never gained any traction with regards to milk, which lead him to give up on that idea and go down some crazy paths to try and find something that would stick.
