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10 -r HE RURAL VOICE
Jeffrey Carter
Pigs and corporations have the vote
"I tras recently 00 a tour of Latin
America. and the only regret I hare
was that I didn't study Latin harder
in school so I could converse with
those people." — Former U.S. Vice -
President Dan Quayle.
The leaders of the Western Hem-
isphere promi'e
much. There's a
brighter future.
they say. Free
trade and demo-
cracy are the
means to that end
"We have a
clause on dem-
ocracy. We have
discussed all the
elements that are
needed to help
the 800 million
people living in
the Americas to
prosper in the
future," Prime Minister Jean Chretien
told Canadians at the close of Summit
of the Americas in Quebec City on
April 22. "We've discussed
environment, we have discussed
education, we have discussed health.
And all the leaders were very, very,
happy with what happened."
Not everyone is pleased, though.
The people of the Americas who
massed in the streets of Quebec City
are not. While the leaders of North
America's democracies may be riding
the free trade breeze, they were
tacking against it. They cite examples
of the here and now: the rise of
corporate power over democratic
rights; worsening conditions for
Mexico's workers; negative
environmental repercussions such as
the Canadian government' s decision
not to ban MMT from gasoline for
fear of a lawsuit by Ethyl
' Corporation.
North America's fanners find
themselves in a quandary over this.
Many are dependent on trade. There's
too much grain, oilseed and meat in
Canada to consume domestically.
Canada is a trading nation. Trade has
brought benefit.
The question that needs to be
asked is, "Who benefits?" Farmers as
a community have not. Their
numbers dwindle and they have
Democracy
comes first.
Trade follows
found they must fit to the mould
that's been cast for them. There's
nothing democratic about it.
Consider Ontario's pork
marketing board. The organization
has a mandate to represent producers
but now holds no clout, thanks to the
gradual erosion of producer powers.
The same kind of scenario holds
sway in Manitoba. where the
marketing board was stripped of its
single -desk powers by the provincial
government. In the United States, a
coalition of pork producers success-
fully won a vote calling for an end to
the check -off for the National Pork
Producers Council. The coalition
maintained that the NPPC represents
the interests of the factory farmers
and big meat packers — not family
farmers. USDA Secretary of Agri-
culture Ann Veneman has so far
rejected the February 28 vote and has
refused to meet with members of the
coalition.
There are other examples of how
farmers have been "marginalized". In
Ontario, a once -thriving asparagus
processing industry is all but gone.
As of this year, the biggest processor
left will likely be John Jaques who
runs a tiny on-farm asparagus
pickling line. The last big player in
Ontario, Nabisco Brands, now buys
canned asparagus from Peru where
the daily wages for workers are
measured in cents, not dollars.
In Saskatchewan, canola grower
Percy Schmeiser was found guilty of
illegally using Monsanto
Corporation's Roundup Ready®
technology. Judge W. Andrew
MacKay, working within the confines
of the law, ruled that Schmeiser
"knew or ought to have known" that
he was sowing glyphosate -tolerant
seed in 1998. There was no ruling on
how the seed came to Schmeiser's
farm. The interests of Schmeiser,
who views the Roundup Ready gene
as contamination, were not addressed.
The rights of corporations,
asparagus, pigs and profit it seems,
take precedence over people. Is this
the democracy of which the leaders
of the Western Hemisphere speak?
Many of our democratic leaders,
whether elected or financed to their
positions, still hold in their hearts the