There be a Dinosaur
A prairie showdown over rail subsidies, co-op betrayal, and a dinosaur statue. One cattleman’s bold stand exposed the fossils of failed policy—and made front-page news.
Early in my career, as Secretary-Manager of the Stockgrowers Association, I found myself in a prairie-sized showdown. Our 8,500 ranchers and cattlemen were fiercely independent, allergic to government meddling. But Ottawa had other ideas, including the infamous Crow Freight Rate—a deal so shortsighted it made Mr. Magoo look visionary.
Back in the 19th century, the government bribed the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) with subsidies to cross the Rockies, offering dirt-cheap rates for grain transport "forever." Turns out "forever" isn't as romantic as it sounds. By the 1980s, CPR hemorrhaged money hauling grain at antique rates, while prairie ranchers and food processors took collateral damage.
The government, aiming to resolve this historic blunder, proposed two solutions: "Pay the Farmer" directly, encouraging local sales, or "Pay the Railway," keeping the status quo. You'd think farmer-owned grain co-ops (the Pools) would back their members. Nope. They supported paying railways because, shockingly, their multi-billion-dollar empire thrived on grain exports. Farmers be damned!
In an interview, I declared, "The Saskatchewan Wheat Pool had become the Dinosaur they were formed to defeat." Boom! Front-page news. Summoned by the Pool's powerful President, Ted Turner, to explain myself, I nervously stepped into his lavish office. Spotting a T-Rex statue behind him, I quipped, "Hey Ted, your corporate mascot?" Initially puzzled, he spun around, saw the dinosaur, and burst out laughing.
Though we lost the battle (government sided with the railway subsidies), change came eventually. By the 1990s, subsidies vanished, and ironically, the Pools transformed exactly into what they'd originally opposed: big corporations.
Moral of the story? Sometimes you eat the dinosaur, and sometimes the dinosaur eats you—but either way, beware the fossils of short-sighted policy!
#Policy Blunder #Agriculture History #Crow Rate #Farmers First #Grain Politics #Rural Canada #CP Rail #Dinosaur Economics #Prairie Tales #Canadian Politics #Jospeh Willmott
Joseph Willmott, CEO of the World Referral Network
Email - jwillmott@worldreferralnetwork.com
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/joseph-willmott-0a746b/
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