The Canadian Wheat Board, Socio-economic Vulnerability and the Neo-liberal State
Bibliographic record
Abstract
The Canadian Prairies is one of the world's largest breadbaskets. But its location in the centre of the country, far from world markets, increases farmers' vulnerability to the middle-men who ship, handle and market their grain. To protect them, the federal government set up the Canadian Wheat Board in 1935 and gave it monopoly marketing powers in 1943. However, these monopoly powers came increasingly under attack as a market-driven, neo-liberal agenda of free trade, small government, privatization and deregulation gained a hold in the 1980s in Canada, as elsewhere. In 2011, Canada's Conservative-led government adopted the controversial Marketing Freedom for Grain Farmers Act ending the Board's monopoly powers. This legislation is controversial not so much for what it does as for how it was done. This paper explores the possible effects of this on Prairie grain farmers. It compares the functioning of an 'open' (or private) market with the CWB's 'controlled' market; it describes the neo-liberal challenges to the CWB's monopoly since the 1980s; and it questions the promise of 'marketing freedom' under the new Act. It concludes with a consideration of several over-arching concerns, including the state of parliamentary democracy and the rule of law in Canada Las praderas de Canadá son uno de los graneros más grandes del mundo. Pero su ubicación en el centro del país, lejos de los mercados mundiales, aumenta la vulnerabilidad de los agricultores frente a los intermediarios, que transportan, manejan y comercian con su grano. Para protegerlos, el gobierno federal creó en 1935 el Canadian Wheat Board (CWB) (Junta Canadiense del Cereal), y le otorgó el monopolio del comercio en 1943. Sin embargo, este poder se vio atacado por el avance de la agenda neoliberal de libre mercado, pequeño gobierno, privatización y desregulación que fue ganando fuerza en los años 80 en Canadá y el resto del mundo. En 2011, el gobierno conservador de Canadá adoptó la controvertida Marketing Freedom for Grain Farmers Act (Ley de libre comercio para los productores de cereales), que acabó con el monopolio de la junta. Esta legislación es controvertida, no tanto por lo que hace, sino por cómo se hizo. Este artículo explora los posibles efectos de esta ley sobre los productores de cereales de la pradera. Compara el funcionamiento de un mercado "abierto" (o privado) con el mercado "controlado" por la CWB; describe los desafíos neoliberales frente al monopolio de la CWB desde la década de 1980; y cuestiona la promesa de la "libertad de mercado" bajo la nueva ley. Concluye con la consideración de diversas preocupaciones globales, incluyendo el estado de la democracia parlamentaria y el estado de Derecho en Canadá. DOWNLOAD THIS PAPER FROM SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2570821
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.002 | 0.003 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.023 | 0.031 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.011 | 0.002 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.004 |
| Research integrity | 0.002 | 0.004 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.006 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".