Bob, we all respect your long record of service to Alberta’s and Canada’s beef industry. But your flippant dismissal of serious, widespread concerns about mandatory checkoff as “amusing” is unworthy of you.
You say it’s ludicrous to call ABP a branch of government. But if an organization depends on government for its funding, and its primary mission is to stay on government’s good side, what would you call it? Certainly, your condescending response sounds more like a politician dismissing a rival than a private company addressing a group of worried customers. And we are quite a large group!
You say rudely that we should be better informed because ABP does not support a carbon tax. But it does. We checked.
It took some effort, because when we went to the albertabeef.org website in search of information, and clicked on “Climate leadership”, the link was broken. But more research unearthed a paper sent to delegates by ABP with the title “Executive Summary of ABP Climate Leadership Policy Position.”
We can forward it to you or put it on our website if you wish but let me emphasize two key passages.
First, “ABP recognises the commitment the Government of Alberta has made to climate leadership and we are prepared to join all Albertans is (in) addressing the challenges and opportunities presented by the Climate Leadership Plan”.
If that was intended as a statement of opposition, you need a better editor as well as a better sense of humour.
The second key passage, after noting how the carbon tax will increase farm and ranch costs substantially, is: “We hope that the Alberta government will consider these competitiveness challenges when decisions are made ABOUT THE INVESTMENT OF THE REVENUE FROM THE CARBON LEVY”. It certainly sounds like endorsing the plan in hope of getting a cut of the “take”, to the extent of substituting the government’s preferred, soothing “levy” for the frank, unpleasant “tax”
The argument for such conduct is that ABP has to be “at the table” when government makes decisions. But such access comes at a steep price in independence. Certainly, your disdain for a resolution to give delegates better information about the supposed scientific basis of climate alarmism suggests far more concern for what government thinks than for what the typical beef producer does.
Such access also comes at a steep price in effectiveness. As we pointed out in one of our amusing missives, our organization didn’t force a change to the Crow Rate by being a friend of government. We did it by giving our producers and their neighbors and friends facts based on sound economics that created irresistible public pressure for sound policy.
Finally, in your letter you dismiss our call for the ABP to have to “compete for your funding support” because “Lobbying government for what’s best for the beef industry should not and cannot be competitive.” In short, you want government to give you a monopoly. Well, Bob, government doesn’t hand out money and favours for free. And you know it.
Like many of our friends, we support a variety of grassroots organizations that do research on public policy and advocate for freedom. And they do an excellent job partly because they have to compete for our donations.
Laugh if you want. But I and many of my friends want to make sure the ABP depends on us for its money, not the government, because as we said at the outset, he who pays the piper calls the tune. And that’s no joke.