Vulnerable Farms:

At the time I grew up on a farm, there was a farmyard on practically every quarter-section of land. As time went on, farms grew larger as the economics of scale kicked in. The farm implements grew accordingly.

Today, there is one farm and one farmyard where there used to be a dozen or more. That one big farm now contains buildings for the farm families and animals, plus well over a million dollars worth of machinery. That includes giant tractors with tilling machines to match, large harvesting equipment, trucks, loaders, graders, grain bins, and all-terrain vehicles. 

There is machinery to do everything that needs to be done--all on a giant scale.

So what we have there is a small island of value perched in the midst of a large tract of land mostly well isolated from any municipal source of administration such as fire protection, law enforcement or any other services paid for by taxation.

Too often, this presents an irresistible temptation to the kind of people who would benefit from anything they can steal or gain simply be walking in and taking it. By the time the farmer can get any response from the RCMP or the local police force, the freeloaders are long gone.

Some administrations, like those in Australia, where sheep and cattle ranches are vast, have decided to cope with this problem by making it legal for ranchers and farmers to shoot thieves and trespassers where unavoidable without the risk of being charged and dragged endlessly through the law courts.

But not in Canada. Here, our Prime Minister and his ministry of justice have indicated that they intend to make it easier for drunks, thieves and trespassers to pillage farms by reducing the chances of successful legal retribution for the farmers.

Like his father before him, young Trudeau obviously does not appreciate the importance of farming to Canada's economy. 

Hey, Justin, that is where they grow things you eat, you know, like food. That's where your local supermarket gets the stuff they load into their shelves. That is where the stuff they make doughnuts from at the doughnut shops comes from.

It's not just a rural Canada problem. Eventually it may even have an effect on urban electorates, including Toronto, Montreal and Ottawa. When the time comes that the coffee drinkers can no longer buy doughnuts, they may reconsider how they mark their ballots.