WINNIPEG – Senators ended their two weeks of prairie public hearings last week convinced that government proposals to reform the Canadian Wheat Board are badly flawed and need fixing.
They likely will suggest that the inclusion clause be scrapped, that the board of directors have the power to hire and fire the new CWB president, and perhaps that the federal auditor general have access to wheat board books.
While some of these recommendations would go further than the government wants, some senators would like to move even more after hearing prairie witnesses.
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The issue, as they hear final witnesses in late April in Ottawa and begin to debate possible amendments, is how far they can go.
The Liberal-dominated House of Commons has the final say over what amendments are accepted. Senate amendments likely will go to the House of Commons for a vote in mid-to-late May.
“There will be amendments proposed,” Senate agriculture committee chair Len Gustafson said April 2 as six days of prairie hearings ended. “I think the minister needs a little help on this bill.”
The Saskatchewan Conservative senator said he was impressed by the depth and breadth of opposition to the wheat board monopoly and the western anger over the fact that Ontario wheat growers are being offered an export option while western wheat growers are not.
Still, he conceded that amendments to end the monopoly would not win government approval yet: “It may be too early for Western Canada.”
And Winnipeg Conservative senator Mira Spivak ended the hearings by telling those who have counselled killing the legislation that it is not possible.
“The chances of killing the bill are zero,” she told farm witnesses April 2. Some had suggested the Senate try to subvert the legislation either because it undermines the wheat board or leaves it too powerful.
But senators said they are intent on proposing improvements to the government.
In Ottawa in late April, they will hear from the Canadian Wheat Board and the Ontario Wheat Producers’ Marketing Board before deciding what to recommend.
Based on interviews with members of the Senate agriculture committee at the end of the prairie hearings, likely amendment proposals include:
- Deleting the existing inclusion/exclusion clause, perhaps proposing a suggestion favored by CWB minister Ralph Goodale that votes on future additions or subtractions from the board be triggered by the minister after lobbying, with a farmer vote required.
- More power for the board of directors, majority elected by farmers, to have a say over who is named chief executive officer of the CWB and how that official’s performance is judged.
- A provision that the federal auditor general have access to wheat board books.
Liberal senator Fernand Robichaud, a former junior agriculture minister, said in an interview he was impressed by the arguments that the board of directors should have more control over hiring and firing the board CEO. Currently, the federal minister would have that power.
“They made very good arguments that the board should control that,” he said. “I tend to agree with them. There were good arguments, they seemed to have wide acceptance and they made a lot of sense.
