Is the Canadian Wheat Board a democratic organization that should be governed on the principle of one person, one vote?
Or is it a business in which those who have the biggest economic stake in its operation should have the biggest say over who’s in charge?
That seems to have emerged as the top question facing the three-member panel conducting a review of the CWB election process.
The debate is whether to switch to what’s being called a weighted ballot in future CWB director elections.
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The present system gives every permit book holder one vote.
With a weighted ballot, farmers who do more business with the board or grow more grain would get more votes, similar to shareholders in a corporation.
At public hearings last week, the federally appointed review panel was urged by a number of farm groups and farmers to make the change.
“It seems to be the main issue,” said panel member Greg Porozni, a farmer from Willingdon, Alta.
Western Canadian Wheat Growers Association president Cherilyn Jolly-Nagel said a weighted ballot is the association’s No. 1 priority in the election review.
“The degree of say you have over the board should be based on the degree of economic interest you have in its operations,” she told the panel in Saskatoon.
That was also the main thrust of a presentation by one of the CWB’s elected directors, Dwayne Anderson of Fosston, Sask.
“The CWB is a business enterprise that needs to be treated like a business enterprise,” he told the panel.
Others are just as adamantly opposed.
The National Farmers Union says a weighted ballot would give big farmers undue influence over the marketing agency and effectively disenfranchise thousands of smaller producers.
“It opens things up to a direction we don’t want to see it go,” said executive secretary Terry Pugh.
Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities president Neal Hardy also rejected the weighted ballot during his appearance before the panel.
While a number of groups want a weighted ballot, there is no consensus about how it should be set up.
Suggestions include basing it on a farmer’s acreage or production of CWB grains, the value of that production, or how much tonnage is delivered to the board.
Anderson said any new system must be simple, accurate and transparent.
Under his proposal, based on the Australian marketing agency AWB Ltd., a farmer would get one vote if he delivered an average of at least 40 tonnes of wheat or barley to the CWB over three years.
Delivering between 500 and 1,000 tonnes would provide a second vote. Every additional 500 tonnes would provide another vote, to a maximum of seven.
An average producer would receive two or three votes.
