SASKATOON, Sask.-"Wholesale branchline abandonment and elevator closures are having radically negative impacts on farmers and rural communities. Schools are closing, stores are closing, and farm families are being forced to shoulder higher costs. Some call this progress. We have to ask: Progress for whom? Farmers are worse off, workers are worse off, schoolchildren are worse off, and rural Canadians are worse off. Who benefits?" asked Hugh Wagner,General Secretary of the Grain Services Union. Wagner was one of four speakers at Monday's Rura-Urban Forum.
A standing-room-only crowd of nearly 250 packed St. Joseph's Parish Hall in Saskatoon Monday night. They came to hear about the situation in rural Canada and how rural and urban Canadians can work together for improvement.
Nettie Wiebe, former President of the National Farmers Union, told the crowd that in order to restore rural Canada, "rural residents need new tools and new allies. We need
urban allies. We need collective, conscious interdependence and we need to work together in a systematic and organized way."
The rural and urban residents at the meeting passed the following motion:
Because ill-advised government policies-such as branchline abandonment, corporate hog production, and export-oriented agriculture-are threatening family farms, rural communities, and public infrastructure, this meeting shall go on record as supporting the following two initiatives:
- That rural and urban citizens should work in solidarity to forge links to safeguard family farms and rural communities;
- That, as a concrete first step, the federal and provincial governments should use their legislative authority to suspend branchline abandonment and elevator demolition until the full cost of such abandonment and demolition, to all affected, can be calculated.
Maude Barlow, Council of Canadians Chairperson, pointed out the links between rural decline and depopulation, on the one hand, and the free trade agreements, WTO, and globalization, on the other. She said: "Because of these trade agreements, small and medium-sized family farms are losing their only defenses-marketing boards, safety nets, and proper and prudent regulation."
Rev. Bill Phipps, Moderator of the United Church of Canada, was the final speaker. Phipps stressed that "the health of rural and urban peoples and communities are intertwined. One cannot be healthy without the other."
The Rural-Urban Forum in Saskatoon is the first in a series of meetings to be held in towns and cities across Saskatchewan. The second is scheduled for February 25, 7:00 P.M. in Stenen, Sask. Organizational support for these Forums is provided by the National Farmers Union, Grain Services Union, and Council of Canadians. Additional support is provided by labour, farm, environmental, and church organizations.
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