The question of whether farmers should be able to vote to expand the jurisdiction of the Canadian Wheat Board, as well as to contract it, has caused a split in the Liberal caucus.
Last week, Liberal MPs held some heated debates on the issue behind the closed doors of caucus meetings.
Meanwhile, representatives of the wheat board advisory committee worked behind the scenes on Parliament Hill to convince some skeptical Liberals it would only be fair.
“Some of them who face Reform opposition in their ridings may be afraid that this will look like a bid to expand the board,” said advisory committee chair Art Macklin. “We see it as just giving farmers a choice.”
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The dispute revolves around a clause in the government’s proposed wheat board reform legislation that would give farmers the right to vote whether to reduce the board’s monopoly by removing a crop from its jurisdiction.
Board supporters, including Liberals Marlene Cowling and Wayne Easter, have argued that the wording should be changed to make it clear farmers also can vote on whether to expand the board’s jurisdiction to new grains.
During public hearings on the wheat board legislation, many pro-board witnesses made the same plea.
“It would be logical, in terms of democracy, to have this go both ways,” Easter said last week.
But some nervous Liberals do not agree.
Last week, the division was briefly on public display in the agriculture committee.
As MPs debated amendments to the wheat board bill, Easter was supposed to propose an amendment that would allow a future government to extend the jurisdiction of the board “to any kind, type, class or grade of grain, or grain produced in any area in Canada”, so long as farmers had approved it in a vote and it met all the requirements for a change in jurisdiction laid out in the bill.
At the last moment, he decided not to propose his amendment for fear it would be defeated by a split in Liberal ranks.
The debate then went back behind closed Liberal party doors.
Easter said later he hopes to convince the government to propose a similar amendment if the wheat board bill is debated again in the House of Commons this week before next weekend’s expected election call, which will kill the wheat board reform bill in its tracks.
Power to farmers
“I would be very surprised if there isn’t a government amendment coming forward,” he said. “I think it would put farmers in charge of their own destiny. This would be something we could take to the voters in terms of what we will do after the election.”
Still, not all Liberals last week seemed comfortable with the prospect of going before the voters to defend a proposal that would give farmers the right to expand the wheat board.
Some argued privately that it would inflame anti-board voters while offering pro-board voters something that may not be possible to deliver.
They said trade law may make it impossible to add new crops to the jurisdiction of a state trading enterprise with monopoly powers.
