Agriculture Union: CGC job losses - Fight political fire with fire!
Published by Patrick January 9th, 2008 in Political Action Tags: agr, grain-commission.The Agriculture Union is formulating a campaign against the politically-motivated job cuts at the Canadian Grain Commission.
There’s more ideology than common sense behind the December 13 tabling of Bill C-39, An Act to Amend the Canada Grain Act, in the House of Commons. If enacted, it would change the Commission’s mandate and gut inward inspection, inward weighing and CGC’s security program.
All this is being done by the Conservatives to pander to their base of ‘free market’ farmers who want little or no government regulation impeding their ability to sell their grain on the open market – when it suits them.
Given such a blatantly political agenda, our Union is preparing to fight political fire with fire.
Early in the New Year, the National Office will be making arrangements to meet with the Agriculture critics of all three opposition parties. We are also pressing our bargaining agent, the Public Service Alliance of Canada, to take up this issue as a major Alliance-wide campaign.
The hard, cold reality is that none of this will likely succeed unless our own Agriculture Union members – and not just those at the CGC – begin to put pressure on federal politicians from all parties.
As a start, we urge members to use the holiday break as an opportunity to meet with local Members of Parliament in their constituency offices to express our opposition to Bill C-39. As well, we would encourage you to talk to your contacts in the farm community.
To get the ball rolling, you can use the following Web site to find your local federal M.P. and his or her constituency office information simply by entering your home postal code: