OTTAWA – A Manitoba Liberal MP says the Canadian Wheat Board has a moral obligation to ship more grain through the port of Churchill this year and in the future.
A board spokesperson disputes the claim.
During a year expected to be the port’s second worst on record by grain volume, Churchill MP Elijah Harper has asked the board to come to its aid.
He said the board has an obligation because it’s part of the Gateway North project that is looking at how to make the northern port more viable.
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“We urgently need the wheat board’s commitment and support as a Gateway North partner,” Harper wrote board chief commissioner Lorne Hehn last week. “I urge you to take all steps necessary to increase shipments through Churchill this year and keep this process working.”
Lorne Hanks, an aide in Harper’s Parliament Hill office, said the board was part of an agreement to gradually increase the volume of grain shipped through the port.
“Instead this year, we are seeing volume dropping,” he said. “We are just saying we want to see the board living up to the spirit of the agreement.”
At the board’s Winnipeg offices, the interpretation of the agreement is somewhat different.
“I don’t think it was a commitment to increase shipments,” said board spokesperson Brain Stacey. “We offered information on what we thought might happen in future.”
And that could include an increase in Churchill grain flows.
He said if it happens, it will not be because of an artificial or political commitment: “Our mandate is to earn maximum returns for farmers and if that is through Churchill, that’s what we will use.”
Harper said he had been told Churchill will close this year by Sept. 15, having handled just 130,000 tonnes of grain – the second smallest volume ever and the smallest since the drought year of 1988.
Ice unpredictable
Stacey said that has not yet been decided. The board is negotiating on two sales that might go through Churchill. If they are signed, it would mean the port would be open past mid-September and the final volume would be more than 130,000 tonnes.
But he said the volume will be down sharply this year because there is little carryover volume on the Prairies and that is usually what moves through the northern Manitoba port later in the year.
“It’s also a late harvest and that doesn’t help the situation. By the third week in October, ice conditions become unpredictable.”
