GRANDE PRAIRIE, Alta. – A slim majority of farmers in the British Columbia Peace Region want to keep the Canadian Wheat Board, according to a survey of residents by its member of Parliament.
“The majority of respondents to the survey indicated they did not favor a dual market system. A lot of that is out of fear that a dual marketing system will mean the demise of the Canadian Wheat Board,” said Reform MP Jay Hill during House of Commons agriculture committee hearings here.
“A full open market system doesn’t have the same appeal to farmers in the Peace River region than if you’re 100 or even 200 miles from the Canadian border,” said Hill.
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He gave the survey results as part of a presentation by the British Columbia Grain Growers Association. Originally, the group said it didn’t have enough opposition to proposed changes to the wheat board bill to bother making a presentation, but in the end presented the survey findings to the committee.
“The majority, by a slim margin, mind you, support single-desk selling for barley. I was quite surprised given our remoteness from the American border there wasn’t more support for the Canadian Wheat Board,” Hill said.
Fifty-seven percent of the 124 farmers who returned the survey to Hill wanted to keep the wheat board as the sole marketer of their grain. There are about 450 wheat board permit holders in the B.C. Peace.
Forty-three percent said “major changes” were needed to the board, and 27 percent called for “minor changes.”
On the question of an appointed or elected board of directors, 91 percent wanted to elect some or all of the board of directors.
