I thought we ran a darn good campaign, I knew the majority of farmers were on the choice side, but obviously we didn’t do a good enough job in getting the vote out.
Yes, I’m disappointed, I put a lot of work into this and I’m passionate about my belief that a farmers grain belongs to the farmer who grows it. One day that will be true in Western Canada the way it is everywhere else but that day has once again moved further down the road than it should be.
I’d like to thank everyone who took the time to vote for a choice candidate. I’d like to thank all of those who helped out the other choice candidates and myself with election expenses. One of the most important and overlooked ways of supporting a cause is by doing so financially and those that do so need to be commended for their contributions.
I’d also like to thank my family who has not seen me nearly as much as they should the past few months. A special thanks needs to go to my Father who after harvest had to do without my help for most of the fall work, if it wasn’t for him there would have been no way I would have been able to run in this election at all.
As a small conciliation I believe we did increase the number of people who voted for choice by quite a bit. I’m going to have to dig up the last elections results to be sure but I think percentage wise the number has pretty much doubled since four years ago. The trend is definitely on our side.
Looking at the big picture I’m reminded of what Winston Churchill said once about the Irish “situation” when he had to deal with it, ” if you are not thoroughly confused by it all then you don’t fully understand what is going on.” How is it that the barley plebisicite and the wheat board surveys keep going our way but director elections have yet to catch up? There is a contradiction here and the best anyone can say about it all is that the results continue to be mixed. As long as that’s the case one can argue either way about what farmers really want and still be right.
Having said that I am reminded of something Jim Chatney once said,” freedom is not something that you vote on, it’s something that you fight for.” Unfortunately, too many still believe the opposite. But there is an ever growing number of us who agree with Jim. The fight for a more moderate approach to the CWB monopoly will carry on and one day we will finally have -the right to choose-.
