Farmers have it all wrong! While they have been working their fingers to the bone growing grain, raising cattle, or selling hogs, there are people out there who make a living harvesting taxpayers. Groups like the Canadian Farm Business Council (CFCMC) effectively cultivate the crop.

The CFBMC is a non-profit corporation headquartered in Ottawa that gets a monthly allowance from the federal Department of Agriculture. Their mission is to "support Canadian farmers through building partnerships and facilitating the development and sharing of innovative business ideas." It has five or six staff and a 22-member Board of Directors.

While hard-pressed western farmers suffered through the worst income crisis since the Great Depression, the CFBMC's expenditures grew from $1 million in 1995-96 to $2.3 million in 1996-97, $3.5 million in 1997-98, and $5.7 million in 1998-99. Grants through the Department of Agriculture kept pace with the Council's spending until the end of the fiscal year in 1999, when the Department advanced them an amount 2 ½ times larger than normal in order to prevent a deficit in the Council's operations. While the Council was getting topped-up in such generous fashion, farmers were practically begging for relief.

So what exactly are we getting for our money

Well, according to an Access to Information request filed by the CTF with the federal Agriculture Department, the chairman and another board member got a trip to a conference in South Africa, and another Board member got a trip to France. But that's small potatoes. By the end of the current fiscal year the Council will have spent over a million dollars on travel, accommodations, and equipment for council meetings over the past four years. A bloated Board of Directors with 22 members from all across the country that meets six times a year ain't cheap. To keep things in perspective, the Board is about one-third the size of the Saskatchewan legislature, and larger than the city councils of Regina or Saskatoon.

We are also getting consultants by the bushel. As of the end of this fiscal year, it is projected that the Council will have spent almost $3.5 million on consultants over the past four years. The yearly amount almost tripled from $479,136 in 1996-97 to $1,261,309 last year. Maybe farmers hit by low grain prices should plant consultants this spring.

We're also getting some very expensive meetings and conferences at the Kananaskis Resort in Alberta, the Nottawasaga Resort north of Toronto, and the Moose Jaw Mineral Springs Resort just to name a few. After spending $31,878 on conferences in 1996-97, the conference budget grew by about seven times to $227,900 last year. The "Excellence 2000" conference held at the Banff Springs hotel in February of this year was expected to cost a cool half-million, paid for by a mix of tax dollars and convention fees of $825. Rumour has it that one speaker alone cost about $100,000 for his fee, travel, care and feeding.

We are also getting board games. The Council has spent $304,000 to develop a board game for farmers called "The Great Globalization Game" that costs about $90 to purchase. The rationale for spending wads of cash on the board game according to the CFBMC's 1998 Annual Report was: "In these times of stress and pressure, people need to have some fun." After trying to figure out the AIDA rules, I don't think Saskatchewan farmers are in the mood to play any more government games. Globalization is no game, and it's time the federal government and groups like the CFBMC stopped treating tax dollars like Monopoly money.