QUESTIONING DECISIONS MADE ACROSS THE BOARD

Eureka!

Get this:

The Canadian Weed Board.

Eh? Eh?

The column is now open for questions.

Yes, you, Q, you have a question?

Q: Just five. What? Why? Where? When? And, in particular, insofar as
it certainly bears repeating: WHAT?!

A: Exactly as stated. Parliament passes legislation not to abolish,
not to weaken, but to preserve forever the Canadian Wheat Board, on
two conditions: 1) instead of a soft "Wh..." and an "...e-t," a hard
"W.." and an "...e-d," a virtual homonym, and 2) instead of selling
grain, the marketing monopoly moves exclusively into cannabis,
marijuana, goof grass, spliff, mary jane, dope, jazzleaf. Everybody
wins. The Canadian Whe..er, Weed Board gets to keeps its existence as
a 500-employee federal bureaucracy. Farmers, released from historic
board restrictions and obligations, gain the freedom to sell their
grain to anybody at any time.

Q: Congratulations. Today's idea is without question the stupidest in
the history of all time since Thursday's column.

A: Please. Do not laud the column. Laud your federal government. A
Canadian Weed Board is merely the logical extension of the past
decade in major federal dope deals, such as federal approval of
marijuana for medicinal use; the federal government's own grow-op in
the mine shaft at Flin Flon (remember? high-ho, high-ho and off they
go -- Doc, Dopey, Bashful and Sleepy?), and the draft legislation to
take pot out of the Criminal Code. Estimates put illegal marijuana
sales in Canada at $5-8 billion annually, roughly the same value of
the Prairie wheat crop. Money, power, control over the business
affairs of others, moral hypocrisy -- what part of a Canadian Weed
Board wouldn't appeal to the federal government?

Q: No. Something's very wrong here. Would not a Canadian Weed Board
put the federal government in the business of drug-trafficking, which
is illegal?

A: Hmm. Good question, and one that deserves much more thought, a
good chin-stroke. Perhaps the two of us, Q and A, could get together
and further discuss the matter over a beer or two from the provincial
liquor board's phenomenally profitable business of bootlegging and
price-fixing, which is legal.

Q: DUDE!

A: What?

Q: Dude, I'm, like, what you would call a, you know, an independent
weed-grower? So, like, if I don't sell my stuff through the new
Canadian Weed Board, like if I sold just to my regulars, privately,
would I, um, would I...oh, man. I forgot what I was going to say. Whoa.

A: Would you go to jail, just like a common grain farmer? Yes. Yes,
you would. Yours is probably a moot point, however. Once the federal
government gets into the business of dealing dope, the federal excise
taxes and the federal overhead will send prices so high as to make
pot unaffordable to 99 per cent of Canadians, thereby turning
teenagers instead toward the alternatives of sports, music, art,
science and life.

Q: Well. You certainly have sold the public on the concept of a
Canadian Weed Board. What now?

A: What now is that the Canadian Wheat Board enters a transitional
phase. Obviously the agency will need new letterhead, and a resigned
logo. We'll tender all that out to private industry in the Canadian
silk-screening and vintage long-play vinyl record sector.

Neat thing is that "Canadian Weed Board" is already bilingual,
pronounced the same by anglophones and by francophones attempting to
say "Canadian Wheat Board." Obviously the board's product-testing
division will need a way bigger cafeteria, open 24 hours. Otherwise,
the systems itself stays. Weed growers would still receive an initial
payment, and also, unless they forget, an interim and final payment.
Permit books wouldn't change much, either, except for the valuable
pizza coupons on the back pages. It would probably make good business
sense as well to relocate the Canadian Weed Board headquarters away
from Winnipeg, closer to the major international marketplace.

No question British Columbia could use the economic boost.