Small Flockers Blog is gaining traction

We are slowly gaining interest in our Blog and the issues discussed here.



  Keep up the good work of passing the word.  Most of us have a long list of friends in our email address book.  DO any of them eat chicken?  Perhaps they'd be interested to learn why they pay so much for chicken.

Some recommended actions to help spread the word:

• Sign our on-line petition (link in right column)
• Follow us on Twitter (link in right column)
• Share our posting on Facebook to your Friends (link in right column)
• Tweet one of our postings (link in right column)
• Subscribe to our RSS Feeds (link in right column)
• Add us to one of your Google+ Circles (link in right column)

• Recommend us on Google+ (link in right column)
• Email your friends a link to this Blog, and your recommendations to read and learn.

For those more mathematically inclined, we are doing exponential growth in the viewers of this Blog, as we must do at this stage of our life.

When dealing with exponential growth, "doubling time" is a useful concept.  Doubling Time is the time taken to double the measured quantity.  This is how bacteria grows, not that I'm comparing this Blog to a growing slime in the corner of somebody's shower stall.

The following graph shows this Blog's doubling time:



So far, we have almost had 10 doublings in the 13 days that this Blog has been alive.  Very quick out of the gate we were, at a hyper geometric growth rate (ie. an exponential of an exponential).  We have now settled into our steady pace for the marathon, currently adding 0.1 doublings every day.  To me, that's pretty good.

For this Blog to touch the lives of 8.4 million people (ie. the number of eligible voters in Ontario), we need 23 doublings to occur.  At our current instantaneous doubling rate of 0.1 doublings per day, we will need another 130 days to add an additional 13 doublings (23-10)/0.1= 130

That aggregate total of 23 doublings in another 130 days equates to a interim finish date of July 5, 2013  We'll see if we can keep up this exponential growth rate until then.  Press on, my faithful Blog Hounds, we have work to do!

For all of Canada, we'll need 35 doublings, which is 250 days at our 0.1 doublings per day, finishing on Nov. 2, 2013 at our current rate.

See, that's not impossible.  It can be done, and it won't take the rest our our lives to accomplish.  The light is clearly visible at the end of the tunnel.

Keep moving, don't ever stop.

$10.8 Billion of Fascist Chicken in Canada

Small Flockers have taken the position that the greater good of the public trumps the wishes of everybody else.  Where did we get such a crazy idea?

Under Section 95 of the Canadian Constitution Acts (1867 – 1982), Provincial Parliaments are empowered over agriculture, provided that their provincial acts and regulations are not repugnant to any Acts of Canada’s Parliament.  Both the Federal Government and the Provincial Governments are empowered to pass legislation on agriculture.

The Federal Government passed a number of laws and regulations to set up a Canada-wide Supply Management system back in the 1960's.  In 2001, the Feds finished negotiations to resolve the egg and chicken wars between Provinces, and an agreement was signed by all the parties, the 2001 Federal-Provincial Agreement for Chicken.

I'm sure that CFO must have heard about this agreement, because they were one of the signatories on the documents, as was the Government of Ontario.

Excerpt from 2001 Federal-Provincial Agreement on Chicken

In that agreement, it states that everybody will get along and play nicely together.  The recent skirmishes over chicken between Ontario and Quebec, and between Quebec and New Brunswick don't seem to meet that expectation, but that is another story for another day.

Under Section 1.01 of that agreement (see at right), all the parties are supposed to work is a Supply Management system that must have a number of very important characteristics. If we have something imposed upon us that doesn't meet these minimum requirements, then they aren't following the rules.  If they don't follow the rules, than we don't have to follow these made-up rules either, for what they ended up doing is ultra vires.  They have no legal basis for doing what they are currently doing.

Especially note Section 1.01 d) where we are required to have a system that works in the balanced interest of producers, industry stakeholders and consumers.  To me that means the decisions have to be equally good (or equally bad) for all three of these groups.

Is that what is occurring?  Raube Beureman just posted a comment on this website that Walmart USA chicken was $4.38/kg, while Walmart Canada offered the same chicken for $13.54/kg at the same time, in neighbouring cities.  That's 3.09 times more expensive in Canada for the same chicken.  Does that sound like "balanced interest"?

Where does all that money go?

CFO reports that in 2011 they produced 452 million kg. of live chicken at a price of $1.596/kg.  Typically the eviscerated weight is 73.72% of the live weight, so we got 333.236 million kg of eviscerated meat.  Add to that about 159 million kg of eviscerated chicken imported into Canada in a year, of which Ontario gets about 33%, so we have a grand total of 385.75 million kg per year of eviscerated chicken.  Now charge Canadians a premium price of $9.16/kg extra for that chicken (ie. $13.54 - 4.38= $9.16/kg).  That price premium for chicken that we are forced to pay sucks out $3.53 Billion per year from the Ontario pocketbook.

According to Ontario's Ministry of Finance in 2012 the total spending for the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture and Food will be $1.546 Billion (operating, assets, and capital expenditure).  So our premium chicken prices could pay for running the entire OMAF for a year, and put $1.98 Billion towards reducing the provincial deficit.

What about Canada-wide?  Chicken Farmers of Canada report in their 2012 Chicken Databook that 1.023 Billion kg of eviscerated chicken were produced in Canada during 2011 (latest stats available).  Adding the same imports of 159 Million kg stated above, we have a total of 1.182 Billion kg. of chicken.  At the price premium pricing over US chicken of $9.16/kg, that is a chicken tax of $10.827 Billion per year which consumers are forced to pay.  With 13.3 million households in Canada, that is a chicken tax of $814.00 per year per Canadian household.

I wonder who got those extra Billions.  What would consumers have spent their money on if they didn't have to pay those premium chicken prices?  If the government got the money instead, would they have reduced our taxes, paid down the deficit, or provided us $10.8 Billion of additional services?  If we are forced to pay an extra $10.8 Billion per year for premium prices on chicken, we can't spent it on something else.

We hear about Banana Republics where the dictator is smuggling plane loads of diamonds and gold out of the country, as the infrastructure crumbles and the people are starved.  Should we be placing observers at Toronto International Airport watching as our Canadian tyrants take $10.8 billion per year of hard-earned money away from Canadians and spirit it off to parts unknown?

Fascism is defined as when government and business are co-conspirators for their special interests by controlling and repressing the people.  Do we have a $10.8 Billion/yr. case of fascism here in Canada?