Being in charge is more than about borders. After more than nine months the federal government has still not taken any leadership in bringing order to the industry. John Newman, executive member of the Ontario Cattlemen’s Association, says the government has not stepped in to link the needs of the processors, packers, supermarkets and producers.

The one bright light in the whole mad cow fiasco is the Federal Standing Committee on Agriculture. It is composed of knowledgeable members of parliament bent on getting the industry back on track.

But it hasn’t the power it needs. The three major packing plants in the west, two of them, Cargill and Tyson, said to control 60 to 70 per cent of the feedlot market along with the slaughter capacity, didn’t show up at the hearing. All three packers had been sent a letter.

Weeks before, MP Larry McCormick at a BSE meeting in Perth said people who were coming to the hearings were not under oath and weren’t being subpoenaed. "These are CEOs," he said. "They’ll tell the truth." Some on the standing committee are changing their minds. One MP asked that the books of the packers and their CEOs be subpoenaed.

Despite the reluctance of packers to reveal their books, some evidence is occurring that price gouging is taking place. The amount of money farmers received from their cattle was down more than $2 billion dollars in 2003, according to Statistics Canada. At the same time, the George Morris Centre in Guelph has reported that packer profits between October 6 and February 15 have been approximately $227 million. What’s more, the Canadian Boxed Beef Report for the week ending February 16 said profits were $350 per head compared to $120 per head a year earlier.

With all of this going on the Competition Bureau of Canada says it can’t do anything because nobody is breaking the law. That policy has to be changed if the government is to do something about predatory pricing. But right now farmers find themselves in a position where they are at the mercy of government inaction and bureaucratic indifference.

Unfortunately, a political leadership vacuum exists in the Ontario Government. Utter "Premier McGuinty" at a meeting and a groan of derision rises from the farm audience. He’s hired more meat inspectors and more water inspectors. His land assessors are overtaxing. Sawmills are closing, sugar bushes are trying to stay solvent. He’s destroying the rural economy.

When Farmers Forum phoned McGuinty’s office about the cow cull program, the PR officer didn’t know much other than what was on the press release. She would give us a quote from the premier himself, she said. But for more information, we would have to go elsewhere.

The point is that the McGuinty government is not interested in giving information or serving people. It’s interested, like its counterpart in Ottawa, in developing programs that will get it re-elected. McGuinty has no agricultural program. The new minister, Mr. what’s his name, is more laid back than his federal counterpart Bob Speller.

At the same time a rural revolt is brewing. Smaller meetings have occurred in Niagara Falls, Peterborough and Quinte. But in Renfrew and Lanark the meetings have overfilled the community halls.

Small business owners have had enough of ridiculous environmental programs, designed more as make work projects than anything that will help the environment. Rural people have had enough of inspectors with the powers of the German Gestapo. Rural people are fed up with bending to the will of urban people.