PM Pardons ‘Courageous Farmers’
. . . as Crowd Marks Change to Free Grain Marketing
An estimated crowd of 700 people who gathered at a farm on Wednesday, August 1 heard Prime Minister Stephen Harper pardon farmers who suffered after battling the Canadian Wheat Board and the federal government as far back as over 15 years ago.

Protestors at the time had been charged and some spent jail time over the dispute which some saw as a fight over property rights.

Harper was one of the guest speakers at an event called ‘Grain Marketing Freedom Day’ at the Walde farm south of Kindersley, Sask.—about a two hour drive southeast of Provost.

The celebration was organized by those who fought against the compulsory use of the Canadian Wheat Board to market wheat and barley in Western Canada.

August 1 marked the coming into force of Bill C-18, the Marketing Freedom for Grain Farmers Act—the first day that the CWB was to be used only by farmers who choose to do so.

Farmers in the west can now sell their grain on the open market to whomever and whenever they want to.

The voluntary Canadian Wheat Board will still operate and be supported by the federal government for the next five years.

Rick Strankman of Altario was one of the people who was sent to jail in Lethbridge. He told The Provost News after the pardon that “The law was wrong. The Conservative government recognized that . . . (and) that acknowledgement was enough for me. It was a great day. It’s all good. I am happy.”

Read the rest of this story in the print edition of The Provost News.