Canadian Wheat Board minister Ralph Goodale last week indicated he will face down his critics by introducing wheat board reform legislation much like the bill that died in the last Parliament.
It will create a wheat board with a board of directors two-thirds elected by farmers, more flexibility, some continuing control from Ottawa and a road map to allow future farmer votes on board powers.
And if Goodale gets his way inside government and in Parliament, the legislation will be approved by year-end so elections can be held this winter and the new wheat board can start to operate on Aug. 1, 1998.
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In the crowded first few months of the new Parliament, which opens Sept. 22, Goodale has given himself a tight timetable.
“If the legislation can be properly dealt with by Christmas or the early part of 1998, it may be possible to envisage an election during the late winter or early spring,” he said. “The newly elected directors would have a few months to learn their jobs and then legally take office Aug. 1, 1998. That would be ideal.”
The tight deadline also gives his parliamentary opposition more leverage to try to extract concessions by threatening delay.
In deciding to reintroduce many of the same proposals for wheat board reform as he did last winter, Goodale has decided to defy critics who demanded the original bill be rewritten.
The last legislation, Bill C-72, drew opposition from those who support the existing board monopoly and thought the proposals went too far, and from those who favor a voluntary board and thought the proposals did not go far enough.
On Sept. 8, the Reform party opposition and the Western Canadian Wheat Growers Association, an open-market oriented lobby group, said they would fight the new legislation because it does not offer farmers a choice of marketing options.
Angry farmers expected
And Larry Maguire, president of the wheat growers, predicted widespread prairie farm anger over the lack of options and because Goodale plans to include a clause allowing farmers to decide by vote to add commodities to the board’s jurisdiction, as well as take powers away.
“Every indication I have had this summer is that farmers do not want that inclusion clause,” he said Sept. 8 from his Manitoba farm. “They will work to kill the bill if it is there.”
But Saskatchewan Wheat Pool president Leroy Larsen said the pool supports the government’s decision to move ahead, despite misgivings about some particular clauses.
He said the most important change will be a move directly to a farmer-controlled board of directors.
“We’ve been encouraging him to move with the legislation,” said Larsen. “We had problems with an interim-appointed board and that is now gone. Let a majority of farmers run the board and be responsible for it.”
Goodale said it is a fight between farmers. His bill will balance “accountability and flexibility”.
He said consultations with farm organizations this winter will help set the rules for the election, including electoral districts and voters’ list eligibility.
The new board will give farmers “more control, more direction, more influence than ever before in history, and more accountability,” he said.
