Ritz says farmers’ net incomes actually increased and says
if they had, in fact, lost billions, AgriStability would have been drained of
funds to compensate them.
Gray counters that those were excellent grain-harvest years
and his findings remain solid. Their incomes would have been even higher had
the grain handling and transportation system been able to deliver the harvests promptly
to willing customers.
In fact Ritz and his cabinet colleagues did step in to order
the railways to move more grain to markets.
It is far from the first time the Harper government has
clashed with academics and their research findings. It has also muzzled
scientists and researchers who are on federal government payrolls.
