by Spencer Maxwell – Reprint with permission from September 14th, 2017 on Facebook
My grandpa started farming in the late 40’s. Before that, he grew up working any job he could to provide for his ailing mother and two younger sisters. His father, a soldier in the first world War, died from lead poisoning from his shrapnel wounds after coming home from Europe leaving him as the man of the house at age 10.
Grandpa had nothing growing up and because of that, always preached to my dad, and to me before his death to always save, be frugal, and to prepare for hard times. My dad has always lived by grandpa’s advice and I’m learning now just starting out farming a little of what grandpa experienced.
Last year was the first year in my life, I’m 26, that I can remember our farm not being able to finish harvest. It was my third personal crop year and I left my crop to be snowed on and eventually burnt it this spring as it was unharvestable. This, in itself, was a blow to my just fledgling operation. This spring was also the wettest on record, we only ended up getting 23% of the farm seeded and half of that never even came up. I’ve been working dirt this summer like it’s 1910.
Because of grandpa’s advice, and my father’s wisdom to follow it, I think our farm is going to be OK. The careful preparation, frugal spending, and saving at every opportunity has allowed our farm to weather these tough times.
Now if Trudeau was a farmer… if he operated a farm like his government he would be taking loans out to help pay for all of the neighbors green lights. Taking loans for his own inputs as well as all of his neighbors. He would be checking the neighbors’ crops and livestock before his own. He would be underpaying and overpaying, or not even paying, different employees and not bothering to fix it (phoenix payroll). And then when all is said and done and he realizes his farm is triple the initial deficit, because ya, he planned on his farm to not make any money initially, then Mr farmer Trudeau would cry foul, that bread should be worth 4 dollars a loaf more because he deserves more. That bottle of canola oil should be worth 20 because he needs more money.
The irony is this. Mr Trudeau has never known hard times, and certainly never had to plan ahead for them. And any time there was, or is, anything close to a hard time for him, he has the ability to draw from all the pockets of us regular Canadian citizens.
He actually thinks that us farmers and small business owners are “cheating” the rest of Canada and not paying enough tax. The only reason he is looking for more in the first place is because he tripled his expected debt by looking after every other countries’ business before our own.
Maybe if Mr. Trudeau actually was a farmer we wouldn’t be in this mess in the first place
Spencer Maxwell – Hopeful 4th Generation Farmer, NE Sask
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