EDMONTON – Alberta’s provincial cattle organization is changing the way it hears from producers at its annual meeting.
Instead of spending hours debating resolutions at the Alberta Beef Producers fall annual meeting, a committee will divide resolutions into those that need to be debated at the meeting and those that can be heard in a committee.
“This is a significant departure from what we’ve done in the past,” said Erik Butters, an ABP director, who presented the changes to delegates at their summer semi-annual meeting.
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Butters said more time was spent debating resolutions put forward by producers at the fall producer meetings, with little time left for other discussion.
Under the proposal, a committee would select the most important resolutions to be debated at the annual meeting. The rest of the motions would be directed to the appropriate committee.
Resolutions debated at the annual meeting would be those proposing a significant change in government or industry policy, or would have a significant impact on organizational budgets and procedures.
Resolutions that would have minor impact or align themselves with current policy would be dealt with at the committee.
Joe Zink said the changes would make “quite an improvement” to the annual meeting.
Zink believed funnelling resolutions to committees would allow them to get a better hearing than when they’re only debated for a few minutes at the annual meeting.
Kelly Olson of Athabasca also liked the idea, saying, “it would streamline things and get on with things.”
But Rick Burton of Claresholm said he believed the organization could no longer say it’s listening to the grassroots producers if resolutions brought up by producers aren’t discussed at the meeting.
“It’s a discredit to ABP to not at least hear that resolution in some form at the AGM,” he said.
John Kolk of Picture Butte said many producers feel that passing a resolution is their way of putting forward their views to the main cattle organization.
“That sense of entitlement is still in the country,” he said.
Butters said any producer who feels their resolution must be debated at the meeting could make a motion to have the resolution heard by the entire delegate body.
Delegates at the semi-annual meeting voted to proceed with the changes for the fall meeting.
