The Rural Voice, 2003-06, Page 41We had 5,000 people turn out. We
had Walter Harris on the platform —
he was minister of finance. We
passed a motion to go on a buyers
strike: that we wouldn't buy any new
equipment at all until we had our
floor price."
The next morning a Toronto
newspaper reported the
meeting under a headline:
"Farmers go on buyers' strike".
Massey Harris executives called the
farm leaders, including Powers, to
Toronto to talk about the situation,
saying they were on the farmers'
side. "They took us to to a hotel and
dined us and wined us. We had a
little discussion. We told them
`You've done well for us here but
what are you going to do, that's what
we're concerned about?'
"They said `You'll never know
what we do. That'll never come out
in the press. But we're going to a
meeting next week and Gardiner is
going to be there. You can rest
assured we'll have a good meeting
with him."'
Other counties started having
protest meetings too and it got pretty
hot for the political people Powers
remembers. "In two weeks we had
our floor price. They bought up the
surplus at a reasonable price and
stored it or gave it to the third world.
That's how we got back to regular
production."
The thought that's stuck with him
from that experience is that "Farmers
don't use the organizations that
depend on them for a living, like the
farm machinery companies." These
companies would be in trouble if
they didn't have farmers buying their
products it's in their interests to fight
for a better deal for farmers, he
reasons.
The Federation, along with United
Co-operatives of Ontario and the
credit unions created a farmer -owned
insurance company: The Co-
operators. "I set up Co-operators
Insurance in Bruce and a little bit in
the surrounding counties," he
remembers. "We went into insurance
because the bigger companies
wouldn't give us special rates for
farmers. We decided to start our own
company. It turned out to be one of
the biggest auto insurance companies
in the country."
That success went against
predictions of the agents of the big
insurance companies. Powers
chuckles as he recalls people
predicting The Co-operators would
be out of business within three years.
In truth, it was scary, he
remembers. "We'd watch the loss
ratio every day to see how we were
doing. One big claim would do us in.
But we succeeded."
After Co-operators introduced
special discounts for farmers, the
other companies began offering them
too.
Powers estimates he organized 40-
50 local farm groups as part of the
Farm Radio Forum program. Under
the scheme, local neighbourhood
groups got together and listened to a
radio broadcast on a specific subject,
then debated the issue. "We had a
thousand people sitting around the
kitchen table (in Bruce) every
Monday night in the winter time
discussing a subject."
The success of the Farm Forum
made people realize they could make
things happen, he said. Across
Canada, 12,000 people sat down
every Monday night during the
winter to discuss problems. Each
local group would fill in a report on
their discussions and it was
forwarded to the Federation, not the
government, he recalls.
"I was chairman of the county
committee, then chair of the
provincial and chairman of the
national. It was a good experience."
Television halted the farm radio
forum. A local attempt was made to
organize a television farm forum on
CKNX television with a panel of
speakers being brought in to be
questioned by farm representatives
but it just couldn't capture people's
interest, he recalls.
But Farm Forum led to many
other initiatives to improve the lives
of farmers such as the Bruce County
Co-operative Medical Services in the
late 1940s.
"Through Farm Forum we were
discussing health concerns." Farm
families didn't like to buy from the
regular health insurance providers he
remembers, because the companies
found too many reasons why they
didn't have to pay if a farmer was
hurt on the job. "It was such stupid
stuff that nobody would buy
insurance and so we were without
coverage."
The Farm Forums were used as a
unit of organization to set up the
plan. For a $23 annual payment farm
families could be protected against
the cost of their hospital bills if they
needed hospital care.
On top of that they created a
"catastrophe fund", each family
throwing in an extra dollar or two to
create a fund to give unlimited
coverage in really serious medical
cases so people wouldn't go broke
under the severe circumstances.
In 1955 he left the Federation to
work full-time for The Co-operator.
"It was getting me down at the
Federation," he remembers. "I
couldn't go to a funeral, couldn't go
to a wedding, I couldn't go anywhere
or somebody who got a drink or so
would start discussing things."
There were unlimited hours, he
remembers with the fieldman
working from his home and people
calling at all hours of the day or
night.
"My wife had to take all these
phone calls over all those years, even
when I was selling for The Co-
operators."
He remained with The Co-
operators until 1982 when he retired
and during those years represented
the company on the Federation's
board of directors, which kept him
involved in many other issues from
planning to the creation of conser-
vation authorities to farm debt
review.
As Co-operators expanded into
new lines of insurance, it
called on Powers to pioneer
the new programs, sending him into
Grey, Simcoe, Peel, Dufferin and
Northern Ontario as well as Bruce as
sales supervisor. Soon he was away
from home so much that the
workload was as bad as it had been in
his Federation days. "It certainly
wasn't the life I had anticipated. I
was glad to see the success we had
but it wasn't an easy life."
By then he had rented his land
near Chepstow, keeping one 50 -acre
parcel for beef cattle.
"It was a good thing in a lot of
respects to have a hands-on
connection with agricultural
production. If 1 didn't have the
agricultural background I don't think
I could have had the same effect on
people. People were glad to accept
me."
Over the years he doubts there
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