The Rural Voice, 1990-05, Page 3t
general manager: Jim Fitzgerald
editor: Lise Gunby
contributing writers:
Adrian Vos
Gisele Ireland
Keith Roulston
Gord Wainrnan
Wayne Kelly
Sarah Borowski
Mary Lou Weiser -Hamilton
Cathy Laird
Ian Wylie-Toal
Susan Glover
Bob Reid
Mervyn Erb
Peter Baltensperger
Darene Yavorsky
Sandra Orr
marketing and promotion:
Gerry Fortune
advertising sales:
Merle Gunby
production co-ordinator:
Tracey Rising
advertising production:
Rhea Hamilton -Seeger
office: 519-524-7668
laserset: with the McIntosh Plus
printed by: Signal -Star Publishing
Goderich, Ontario
subscriptions: $15 (12 issues)
Back copies $2.50 each
For U.S. rates, add $3 per year
A
c u,aa
Magazule Pubhshe,s
Ansa moon
All manuscripts submitted for consideration
should be accompanied by a stamped, self-
addressed envelope. The publisher cannot
accept responsibility for unsolicited manu-
scripts or photographs, although both are
welcome. The opinions expressed herein are
not necessarily those of the publisher. Edi-
torial content may be reproduced only by
permission of the publisher. Second Class
Mail Registration No. 3560.
The Rural Voice
Box 37, l0A The Square
Goderich, Ontario
N7A 3Y5
BEHIND THE SCENES
by Jim Fitzgerald
General Manager
One of the basic rules of public
relations or advertising campaigns is to
repeat something over and over again until
consumers get the message through their
heads. Pick a theme and stick to it; ham-
mer the public until they believe it's true.
In the promotion business, they say
that when you're beginning to hear com-
plaints about overkill, the message is just
starting to get through nicely, thank you.
Hitler and his henchmen were among
the most sophisticated people to use the
darker side of this business, known as
propagandization or brain -washing. It
enabled him to galvanize a broken-down
country and sell the "big lie."
Many will argue that related tactics are
being used with the Goods and Services
Tax. Instead of telling the people that the
deficit is caused by a grossly unfair tax-
ation system which heavily favours the
rich and badly needs fixing, convince them
that the deficit has to be paid down and the
GST is the only way to do it. It's called
"smoke and mirrors" by those in the know.
And now the big lie is being used by
those whose interests would be well served
if supply management went by the way-
side. Lately, it seems that no matter which
way you turn somebody is kicking the
grand old lady of Canadian agriculture at a
time when she appears to be on her knees,
reeling from external attacks from Europe
and the U.S. through GATT and the Free
Trade Agreement.
Turn on a TV these days, and there are
pictures of people lining up at the border
crossings to get cheaper (so-called) milk
and cheese and poultry products. Listen to
the radio, and the story is just as one-sided.
Even our national network, CBC radio, has
jumped into the act with its superficial
reporting about how much cheaper it is to
buy things in the great old U. S. of A. Pick
up a newspaper and almost daily there
seems to be a story about how processors
must have cheaper "raw product pricing"
(read lower prices to farmers) or they will
close their plants here and move south.
The attack seems to be led by several
multinational companies which claim they
won't be able to compete in the world mar-
ket unless they have cheaper input costs,
including energy, labour, taxes, and raw
resources. Their arguments are backed by
a number of big think tanks that trot out a
lot of statistics to trample our supply man-
agement system, a system that has, except
for a few blemishes and warts, served both
our farmers and consumers very well over
the years. The high -brow thinkers say we
can't be self-sufficient in agriculture and
still trade.
Take a recent study of the Organization
for Economic Co-operation and Develop-
ment: "Supply controls," it says, "what-
ever their short-term value in curbing
excess production, may prove extremely
costly in the long run." Or listen to Bill
Miner of the Institute for Research on
Public Policy: "We can't afford to have
protected agriculture. I believe Canada
will be managed out of the world market."
Hogwash! Certainly we need constant
"evolutionary" adjustments to our system
to lower the cost of quota to new entrants,
to ensure that quota distribution is fairer
across the nation, and to be more respon-
sive to changing consumer tastes. But let's
not throw the baby out with the bath water.
Properly handled, supply management
actually fits in nicely with growing envir-
onmental concerns. Smaller units of pro-
duction are not only efficient, they also
tend to be family -run units which recycle
manure, rotate crops, and control erosion
far better than a factory farm with 6,000
milking cows and a daily load of manure
that in itself is a major disposal headache.
A comprehensive study undertaken
last year by the economics branch of
OMAF shows that raw product costs have
little to do with the competitiveness of our
agri-food industry. This is reinforced by a
look at the commodity price index of agri-
cultural products which last month stood at
98 (compared to 100 in 1981), while the
industrial wage index stood at 157. Why
should agriculture take another hit?
Don't let big business fool you.
Neither the Europeans nor the Americans
are about to give up self-sufficiency in
food production.
So look soon for the big players to
bring out the "spin doctors," as the PR
people are called, to try to convince the
rest of us about the great success of the
GATT talks. Let's hope that after all the
dust has settled we haven't left Canadian
food production on the gambling table.0