While federal agriculture minister Gerry Ritz celebrated the successful marriage of CWB to Global Grain Group, his political opponents cried “shame” from afar.
Rather than something to celebrate, the NDP and Liberals see the G3-CWB deal as a betrayal of prairie farmers’ interests and proof of the Conservative government’s desire to cut farmers out of the grain handling business.
“Obviously no (farmer) influence is intended,” said Ralph Goodale, the Regina Liberal MP who was minister for the Canadian Wheat Board and agriculture minister during the previous Liberal government.
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“It’s purely cosmetic and it will pass away after seven years.”
The NDP denounced the G3-CWB deal, demanding an emergency debate in Parliament and seeing it as a sellout of Canadian farmers’ interests to foreign multinationals.
“Really, it just seems the federal government has given away control of a once great Canadian institution to foreign investors,” Saskatchewan NDP candidate Erin Weir said in an interview.
“The experience with large foreign corporate interests has been pretty poor so far.”
Goodale, who produced the democratic reforms that gave farmers a partially elected CWB board of directors, said he thinks the Conservative government is willing to do anything to get rid of farmers’ influence within the grain handling system, hence the sale to a foreign grain company with no public disclosure of CWB’s true value.
“It’s a black box, without detail, a lot of secrecy and absolutely no transparency and one would have to conclude that this is deliberate because there is something here that may not withstand public scrutiny,” said Goodale.
“The whole operation is shrouded in secrecy and unanswered questions.”
NDP MP Pat Martin attacked the government for being uninterested in allowing Canadian farmers to gain control of CWB.
“It is unacceptable that the Conservatives dismissed a bid from Canadian farmers and chose a foreign-owned company instead,” Martin said in a demand for an emergency debate in the House of Commons.
Contact ed.white@producer.com
For more reaction on the deal visit the Farmers of North American view of the sale.
