The Rural Voice, 1985-07, Page 68Owe, eduote, 9e-de/ma-do di /49,1zeat‘eie
"If Dolly Parton was a farmer
she'd be flat-busted too."
Honorable Ross Stevenson
Minister of Agriculture and Food
Queens Perk
Toronto, Ontario
Dear Ross:
Congratulations on your appointment as Minister of
Agriculture and Food. The Grey County Federation of
Agriculture looks forward with anticipation to working
with you as you assume your new duties and anticipate
an exciting and productive career that will be long
remembered as a period of real progress and economic
success for Ontario farmers. 11 you ask Grey County
farmers who the last Minister of Agriculture was, the
most likely ieply will be Bill Stewart. We are sure that
before you move on to greater things every farmer in
Ontario will come to know you as his Minister of
Agriculture.
My apologies Ross, I'm a slow writer and things have
been moving at an astonishing pace at Queens Park
lately, so this is going to have to be a farewell letter as
well. This is another first that neither one of us should
be very proud o1, but then It could only happen when it
appears that we'll have FOUR different Ministers of
Agriculture In six months. Heavens. when Brampton
Billy was Premier It took six months to do the polling
never mind shuffling the cabinet three or four times.
You're probably wondering why I'm sending this
through the Rural Voice and not lust dropping it in the
mall. Well you see the last letter we sent by Canada Post
had a couple of complimentary tickets to the Grey
County Cattlemen's Beef Barbecue for you and since we
didn't hear from you I decided to try another means of
communication. I realize It may not be all the Post
Office's fault that you didn't get that letter. I didn't know
you would be the next Minister so 1 just addressed it to
Occupant. That maybe wasn't the thing to do but then it
Isn't often that the Minister of Agriculture changes
about as fast as beef and pork producers are going out
of business in Grey and Bruce Counties. 1 know insecuri•
ty isn't confined to farming and while it has been a fact
of life for some politicians for a long time, the meaning
of the word became abundantly clear to a lot of your col-
leagues on May 2. You know Ross, It's too bad we didn't
have a bit O1 time to work at It because I'm sure that if
you had been able to put a little security back Into farm-
ing you could have taken a lot of Insecurity out of the
lives of some rural politicians.
Sorry those barbecue tickets went astray Ross; the
Cattlemen were sure that you would have two or three
announcements to make about improvements you
would be introducing for the beef business and that you
would really appreciate an audience of close to 800 in-
dustry people for the occasion. If you were serious
about replacing the Honourable Bill Stewart in farmers'
memories, we were sure you would want to announce
the implementation of the recommendations of the Beef
Marketing Agency Commission, and that you had decid-
ed to put in place immediately an enriched and mean-
ingful Bipartite Stabilization program and that
payments to producers for the first and second quarters
of 1985 would be in their hands by the end of June. To
top off a real ten•point performance you could have
taken a page from the book of those Governors in the
mld-west states and closed Ontario's borders to all
agricultural products from any country that permits the
66 THE RURAL VOICE
use o1 any product not registered for use in Canada. We
had a lot of other good ideas for you but by now I'm sure
you've got the idea o1 what we had in mind to make you
THE Minister of Agriculture that would never be forgot.
ten.
That barbecue was a real success and a deep disap-
pointment to me. Knowing you as I do. 1 was sure you
would be there, but then I should have phoned you to
make sure you got the invitation. I was using our invlta•
tion to you to try and sell tickets one morning while try-
ing to buy a fuel cap for a tractor. There were three other
guys standing at the counter all about as frustrated as I
was. 1 hadn't met any of them before but then farm
machinery dealers are getting to be about as scarce as
farmers and we were probably out of our home ter-
ritories. Anyway. we all had our favourite caps on; there
was a growing and feeding CO-OP, a livin' learnin' Alan-
tin' Pioneer, and one 1 really liked that you had to get up
real close to read. It said, "If Dolly Parton was a farmer
she'd be flat busted too." Pioneer had just been told that
his machine was so new that the parts weren't in stock
yet. Co-op was next in line and his planter was so old
that ii was classed as obsolete. The same part he got off
the shelf at his old dealer last year was going to cost
almost twice as much and couldn't be returned if they
made a mistake and shipped the wrong part which under
the circumstances was a sure bet to happen. Dolly
Parton had better luck. The part was available but just
unusual enough that it might have to come from Europe,
might take two weeks, or could be ordered "machine
down" for 25 per cent more and would be here in five
working days, ten for sure. He added in two weekends.
came up with a possible two weeks and exploded in a
torrent of words that blackened the ceiling tiles. While
one of the brass took over the job of soothing Dolly
down I returned the third fuel cap that didn't fit and was
asked if I'd like them to try again. I declined because the
bottom half of a Campbell Soup can had been doing and
adequate job for almost two years and a bit o1 red paint
would make it look not too bad.
Since nobody had spent any money I thought it might
be a good chance to sell a half dozen tickets. Mention-
ing Cattlemen's was a mistake. Pioneer Informed me
that he wasn't in any way supporting an organization
that spent more time debating the quality of light bulbs
and paper clips than it did the Davis and company report
at the last annual meeting. Co-op was ready to jump in
but I tried to head him off by suggesting that they should
come to meet you since It might be your first visit to the
area. The brass returned to inform Dolly that thanks to
their efficient new parts computer he had found the re-
quired part in Saskatchewan and it would be in this
Monday. Dolly's question about how it came to be out
west brought an explanation that boiled down to a pro-
vincial law that required a stock of parts for any
machine sold in the province. Dolly immediately decided
he wanted to discuss a couple of things with you in
person and hauled out the cash for four tickets. Things
were looking up until Co-op asked when we sent the in.
vitation and assured everybody that you wouldn't be
coming because you wouldn't have time to order up the
bodyguard that "the last few of them guys seemed to
bring along on public forays to Grey -Bruce." Pioneer got
into the act by asking i1 we hadn't learned anything from
Sept. 4 when we replaced a bunch of rascals in Ottawa
with what is rapidly appearing to be, "a worst bunch
than we had." In his opinion, John Wise seems to have
completely forgotten everything he ever said about
helping farmers, but is still a first rate guy. Pioneer
thinks those officials Gene Whelan was always talking
about must have got to John and run him way off track.
His theory Is that a good Agricultural critic. with a bit of
experience 81 handling officials, is worth about two
rookie Ministers any day.
Sorry you missed the barbecue and a chance to be a
great Agriculture and Food Minister but if Mr. Pioneer is
right, you keep in touch and we'll make you the best
Agricutural critic any shadow cabinet ever had. With
your help we'll get this thing solved and the public won't
have to go to the museum at Milton and spend the price
of a good meal to see what a farmer looked like when
you were Minister.
Yours truly.
W M. "Don" Hi 1
GCFA President
BRANDY POINT
FARMS
OPEN or BRED F1
YORK X LANDRACE GILTS
and
HAMP/DUROC, LANDRACE
and YORK BOARS
($225 - $375)
• Closed herd ranked GOOD
on R.O.P.
Herd Health Program
• All new genetics deriving
from weekly A.I. breeding
KURT and PAT
KELLER
R.R. 1, Mitchell
348-8043
Twin County Building Systems
R.R. 3, Walkerton
Brock & Butler
Grain Bins & Hopper Tanks
Complete line of aeration and drying
accessories.
* Erection Available
Bert Ernewein Robert Schnurr
519-881-2417 519-367-2779