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The Rural Voice, 2000-01, Page 10READY TO LAY PULLETS BABY CHICKS WHITE & BROWN EGG LAYERS FISHER POULTRY FARM INC. AYTON.ONT NOG 100 519-665-7711 INDUSTRIAL & FARM SUPPLIES • Nuts & Bolts (all grades) • Hydraulic hose & fittings • Belts • Bearings • Grade 70 Transport Chain • Roller Chain • Tools Brian Gibson Springmount Industrial Park 519-376-0283 FAX 519-376-7202 LESLIE HAWKEN & SON Custom Manufacturing LIVESTOCK & FARM EQUIPMENT • Big Bale Rack • Cattle Panels • Headgates & Chutes • Portable Loading Chutes • Gate -Mounted Grain Feeders • Bale Throwing Racks • Feed Panels • Self Locking Feed Mangers • Round Bale Feeders Self Standing Yard Dividers For the best quality and service - Call Jim Hawken Rural Route Three Markdale 519-986-2507 6 THE RURAL VOICE Keith Roulston Watching democracy slip quietly away I've been thinking of Teddy Roosevelt lately, and wondering where we can find a leader like him when we need one. Teddy Roosevelt is a pretty minor historical figure these days. I probab- ly wouldn't know of him if I hadn't, for some reason that escapes me now, chosen his life as topic for a public speech I had to give back in high school. Roosevelt is relevent as the century turns, however, because he spent two terms as president of the United States, battling the concentration of power by huge corporations. That was almost exactly 100 years ago. The movement to prevent big trusts from running the U.S. had begun with the Sherman Anti -Trust Act of 1890 but Roosevelt made battling what he called the "malefactors of wealth", his mark on U.S. history. Sounds pretty radical doesn't it — like an NDP leader or at least Pierre Trudeau. Roosevelt, though, was a Republican who was a main stream conservative in other areas, declaring the right of the U.S., for instance, to interfere in Latin American countries. But Roosevelt realized large corp- orations were using their power to bully smaller rivals and make ordin- ary Americans captive to their demands. His views dominated the rest of the century until the globaliz- ation mania of recent years convinced governments that corporations should be set free from restrictions. Maybe it's something about the end of a century but we're now facing the same kinds of conditions Roosevelt did. American author and journalist Robert Kaplan says half of the 100 largest economies in the world are corporations (it may be more by now since Kaplan made the comments in a speech at the GrainWorld conference last March). The 200 largest corporations employ less than three-quarters of one per cent of the world's workforce but control 25 per cent of the world's economic activity, Kaplan said. But while a century ago Roosevelt and other political leaders were trying to keep business from being too powerful, today multinational businesses seem beyond the control of mere national governments. What's more, governments seem to be actively promoting greater power for corporations. Recently up in Marathon, Ontario there's been a case of exactly the kind of abuse of power that Roosevelt battled. Bananas in a Loblaws-owned Extra Foods supermarket were selling at one third what they'd cost in a Toronto. There -were similar below -cost bargains on eggs and soft drinks. When locally owned D.H. Foods complained to the Competition Bureau in Ottawa the owner was told our law allows companies to sell below cost to gain market advantage. Funny, we get huffy about that kind of thing in international trade. More than that, our governments seem determined to give more power to corporations. How else do you explain the actions of Ontario Farm Products Marketing Commission in delivering the pork industry into the hands of the packers? How else do you explain a new directive from the Ontario Financial Services Comm- ission that new co-operatives trying to form must pay a fee of a quarter per cent of the amount of money they're trying to raise (in the case of Progressive Pork Producers Co- operative that would be $52,000) while a private corporation under the Ontario Securities Commission would pay a sixth as much. What's more the corporate mindset is reshaping democracy. The Farm Products Marketing Comm- ission's provision that future farm votes must be approved by 66 per cent of producers representing 50 per cent of production shows a bias in favour of large producers over small. Society is like a company: those who have more shares get more votes.