Dear Editor
I am a member of the farming community. For some time I have thought I belong to an endangered species. According to Larry Solomon, however, I belong to a group which is a burden upon Canada, a glut, something to be reduced or eliminated.
In the Bible, Solomon was known as a wise man. This Solomon, however, belongs to something he calls Urban Renaissance, a think tank based in Toronto. If this is an example of a Canadian “think tank” then one could easily believe that our best brains have left Canada and what’s left is in think tanks. Heaven help us.
His remarks on Dec. 9 on the CBC morning program with Michael Enwright left me open-mounted, as it did others.
He told Noreen Johns of the Saskatchewan Women’s Agricultural Network that she was profoundly confused.” May I then be permitted to turn to call Larry Solomon “profoundly ignorant?”
The following is what an independent one-woman Rural Renaissance think tank can do to his ideas.
He went on to say farmers are heavily supported by urban people, that farming is a “make-work project” and that not all farming jobs are “real jobs.”
Perhaps I can give my opinion that a “think tank” is not a real job. What does it produce? Could it be called a make-work project?
All the grains and livestock produced on farms create thousands of jobs, with byproducts benefiting people all over Canada.
I suppose he considers the making of beer, shoes, soaps, upholstery, medicines and cement, for example, to be real jobs. These are but a few of the many things made from what is produced on a Canadian farm.
Larry Solomon told us there are too many farmers to be supported by the land. He claims much of the land should never have been used for agriculture but should revert to wilderness. Now there is a point upon which we agree but I must point out that government. usually a Liberal government, urges people to break up land and drain wetlands, giving them grants to do so.
The vast land can support many farmers, yet Solomon tells us farmers in Third World countries could supply us with our food. I cannot believe anyone could be so stupid as to advocate that a country should not be as self-sufficient as possible in food.
As for Third World farmers, they could not begin to meet the demands or the high standards we take for granted in the production and preparation of our food.
Also note there are many people in those countries trying to eke out a living from the soil but apparently, he doesn’t think there are too many of them nor does he seem to acknowledge they are destroying much of their wildness; rain forests for example.
He probably never knew that some Canadian farmers spend their winters in poor countries helping them improve their food production.
Yet Solomon states we are preventing Third World people from farming. Then says there is too much food in the world.
Too much food? Tell that to the many hungry people in the world, including on the streets of Toronto where he lives. Drought floods, pests and diseases of plants can soon get rid of a surplus of food, as can wars.
Next, he tells us our farms are polluted with chemicals. I suggest he and his think tank inquire into the agricultural chemical companies. They could also think about the oil companies, which in many areas pollute farms and farmers with dust and noxious fumes.
The final straw was when he told all rural people to move to the cities for a better environment, cities with smog and a steady infusion of exhaust fumes and daily crime
He tells us we could get better jobs and more safety in the city, that on the farm we are too far from hospitals and farm children have too many accidents.
“Better jobs” often depend upon how one looks at things. Executive directors of think tanks probably think they have better jobs, yet they couldn’t function without the “lowly” people who make sure that sewers work, repair the streets, remove the garbage and produce food.
More safety? Surely you jest! How many women dare walk down city streets alone at night for that matter, how many men?
And huge cities have on their street many homeless people, many of whom are children. Is that a better life?
As for being close to hospitals in case of an emergency, some cities are so congested the ambulances cannot get down the streets. I haven’t just read about it, I’ve seen it.
Mr. Solomon should study history. Any civilization which has allowed the farming people to be destroyed has itself gone down.
It was mentioned somewhere that since Toronto has become a mega-city it could become a province on its own. Ah yes, Toronto produces no food. A manmade natural disaster preventing food from entering Toronto could soon bring it to its knees.
And, to rub it in, I believe there is a pipeline or lines sending oil and gas from Western to Eastern Canada. I wonder where the main “off” switch can be found.
Still on the subject of Toronto and other giant cities, how much wilderness do they destroy as they spawl ever onward like cancer, accompanied by the ever-widening highways?
Recently, I heard a CBC radio commentator say that a panel discussion would be hosted called “Can we afford the family farm?”
Did I hear him correctly? Afford us? What have we been all this time, anyway, a pet or a hobby?
If we are to be driven off the land, tossed aside, that means corporate farms owned by what? Giant U.S. grain companies? Giant agricultural chemical companies? Perhaps even another country, after all, Canadians are experts at selling off Canada, bit by bit. Why not sell off our food production, too?
The thought process of Larry Solomon could be laughable if they were not so scary. One wonders if he is real, but the scary part is there are probably more like him swimming around in that think tank.
How dare he tell us how to live? Who pays the wages of this think tank?
Christine Pike
Waseca
(editor's note: The writer indicates this letter was written several years ago, but feels it still has relevance today)
