Prairie farmers are deeply divided over government proposals to change the Canadian Wheat Board and unrest will follow if farmers are not given more marketing choices, several senators told CWB minister Ralph Goodale last week.
After weeks of public hearings, the Senate agriculture committee called Goodale before them as a last witness before considering how the bill should be amended.
Conservatives on the committee told Goodale their trip west had provided powerful evidence that the government bill does not go far enough for many farmers.
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“The divergence of opinion was quite remarkable,” said Winnipeg Conservative Terry Stratton. “The wheat board today is not held in high esteem insofar as trust is concerned.”
He said farmer demand for marketing choices is the main issue. “If you don’t do this now … we will indeed have a lot of trouble.”
Goodale stood his ground, insisting it would be wrong for the government to impose a marketing policy change on the new board, which will be run by a board of directors two-thirds elected by farmers.
He said if farmers want to break the wheat board monopoly, they can do it by electing pro-choice farmers to the board.
“I believe the appropriate way to do this is to leave that matter to the directors to determine,” he said.
It would be contradictory to offer farmers democratic control over the wheat board “but just before we get to that democracy stuff, I am going to make a fundamental change.”
Farmer control
Goodale said senators should approve his legislation so affected farmers can have some democratic control over how their grain marketing system evolves.
He said the bill answers many criticisms that have been leveled against the government proposal.
For those who argue the CWB should be subject to scrutiny by the federal auditor-
general, he said the directors will choose the corporation’s auditor and they can choose the federal auditor if they want.
And to criticism that the board, rather than the government, should hire and fire the CWB president, Goodale said the board will have an effective veto because Ottawa will make a choice only with board agreement.
“It is all there,” he said. “Perhaps we should put it in bold print.”
When Alberta Conservative Ron Ghitter raised the Alberta government’s view that the new wheat board will still be run by Ottawa and its appointees and will not be as farmer-controlled as Liberals are promising, Goodale fired back.
The new wheat board structure will mean “a very significant divestiture of power” from the federal government to farmers, he said. Ottawa now appoints all the commissioners. In future, it will appoint one-third of the board and the directors will have real power.
“The government of Alberta is just dead wrong on that point,” he said.
Too much authority
Conservative Saskatchewan senator Raynell Andreychuk came at the issue from the other side.
Rather than suggest the directors would be under Ottawa’s thumb, she wondered if the government was not loading too much onto them.
When they should be worrying about grain sales and market conditions, they will instead be dealing with political issues, she said.
Goodale conceded it will be a big, onerous job for the part-time directors.
“We’re asking the directors to do a lot, no question,” he said. “The burden on those
directors will be enormous.”
