Moving Forward... Next Steps
Moving MCGA to be the farm
organisation it ought to be.
Dear Fellow Farmers and the
Concerned Public!
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First
Priority, Getting Out the Vote
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Voting
Strategically, Getting the Most out of Your Ballot
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Fixing
the Vote-splitting Loophole
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Exposing
Ongoing Questionable MCGA Electoral Practices
First
Priority, Getting Out the Vote
As a first priority, there are only
a few more days left to affect the MCGA election. The
deadline for MCGA's election coordinator MNP to receive the
ballots is on or before the close of MNP's work day on December
10, 2007.
Increasing the voter turnout is
among the easiest ways to affect a positive change regarding the
leadership and direction of MCGA's directors. Past Election
turnout has been very poor, even under 10%! The last time
barely 17%!
Every individual farmer you can
encourage to seek out their ballot and vote and this farmer in
turn contacts several others to do likewise, with repeated but a
few more times, can easily make the difference!
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Voting
Strategically, Getting the Most out of Your Ballot
If an overwhelming majority of
farmers would vote, and the election is fair, Bruce Dalgarno in my
opinion would be history!
As the voter turnout becomes lower,
the possibility of votes-splits accruing to the advantage of those
who have control to keep the election process considerably short
of the civic election standard, increases dramatically.
Under those circumstances, voting
for all 4 candidates, other than Bruce, is not in your best
interest, due to the vulnerability of the current ballot system to
vote-splitting.
I would encourage the remaining
voters only vote for Clayton and Dale. Here's why.
For example, lets say approximately
20% of farmers (roughly 2000) want Clayton Harder and Dale Gryba
as their first choice but also vote for Bob Pettinger and Barry
Chappel.
However, even if as few as just Bob
Pettinger and Barry Chappel vote for themselves, then each of
those two have 2001 votes while Clayton Harder and Dale Gryba only
have 2000. Depending on the vote that Dalgarno gets, this
group of 2000 farmers, by also voting for Bob and Barry, have
thereby increased the likelihood that one of Clayton or Dale will
not be elected.
My sense is it would be better for
farmers to have these two on the MCGA board even if Dalgarno is
elected, than to have a board that does not include both of
Clayton and Dale.
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Fixing
the Vote-splitting Loophole
The 2000 farmers could have a much
more powerful ballot, if instead of being limited to marking up to
4 choices with an x, farmers be allowed to mark their ballot
preferentially, voting 1, 2, 3... In this way the
above 2000 producers could mark their ballot preferentially and
still vote for 4 people and prevent the situation where their
ballot contributes to a vote-split as per above. Note, this
change would require a by-law amendment through the regular by-law
change process.
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Exposing
Ongoing Questionable MCGA Electoral Practices
The last time I saw the voters
list, a significant minority of people like Bruce Dalgarno where
on the voters list at least twice. Once in their own name
and once under their corporation.
No-one has yet provided me with a
business rational why someone who is incorporated and therefore
taxed at a lower rate, would still continue to sell Canola under
their own name. However those that had improper control of
MCGA earlier put this type of duplicate voter eligibility into the
bylaws and this matter as one among several ought to be addressed.
And with the past games being played by MCGA, MCGA ought to be
required to release the figures on how many who voted actually
have such duplicate ballots and how many checkoff dollars are
received from such duplicates compared to the corporate checkoff
received from these farmers. For example was it but a dollar
or two?
There are further anomalies taking
place.
If anyone can provide me with
further specific examples, including those who according to the
rules do not qualify to get a ballot but did, if you are one of
these or know of cases, please make contact in confidence,
including on a confidential basis, if so preferred.
Please call 864-2102.
Eduard Hiebert
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