The Canadian Wheat Board will be just as much under federal control as it is now if new legislation is passed, says a senior Alberta government official.
“The way it looks now is … an organization that’s going to work for the federal government, when the plan was to set up something for the producer,” said Ray Bassett, assistant deputy minister of agriculture.
He said proposed legislation allows the government to appoint the president of the board of directors, appoint the directors and oversee the board’s financial and operating plans.
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“People should take a hard look at this,” said Bassett, urging producers to get copies of the proposed legislation from their MPs.
Bassett said Alberta wants the standing committee on agriculture, which will review the legislation, to come west and hold meetings in Alberta. This would allow producers to express their feelings, he said.
“If they hold the hearings in Ottawa, people just can’t go there.”
Federal agriculture committee chair Lyle Vanclief said the committee has not yet received the legislation, so it is too early to tell whether it will hold meetings outside Ottawa.
Bassett said he is worried the new bill might allow the government to take away the right of farmers to sell feed barley in the domestic market.
He said the section of the present act that allows domestic feed barley sales to be removed from the board’s monopoly doesn’t exist in the new legislation. But agriculture minister Ralph Goodale said there is no intention to take domestic feed barley sales out of producers’ hands.
In the upcoming barley plebiscite, producers have the choice between a completely open market or a single seller option, which still allows “the continuing exception of feed barley sold domestically.”
If there is any confusion in the legislation as it stands, it will be fixed by the standing committee, said Vern Greenshields, Goodale’s assistant in Ottawa.
