SASKATOON – A federal government document that dismisses dual marketing as unworkable and potentially fatal to the Canadian Wheat Board has raised the ire of dual market proponents.
The two-page background paper was issued by the government following agriculture minister Ralph Goodale’s announcement that the upcoming vote on barley marketing would be an all-or-nothing choice between the board and the open market.
It says dual marketing is an ideological position based on individual freedom and would never work in practice. It would undermine price pooling and put the future of the board at risk, and would create a market “free-for-all” which would jeopardize Canada’s reputation as a reliable supplier of top quality grain.
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“It is simply not accurate to suggest that two quite opposite marketing systems … can co-exist simultaneously without the one undermining the other,” it said.
Larry Maguire, president of the Western Canadian Wheat Growers Association, called the the document a deliberate attempt to mislead farmers.
“It’s laced with subjective opinion, misinformation and innuendo that has no place in an informed debate,” he said.
Maguire said he was astounded that the government would distribute such a “biased” document at taxpayers’ expense and called on Goodale to retract the paper.
CWB officials said they think the federal paper accurately describes the problems that would arise from a dual market, an opinion echoed by one prominent board supporter.
National Farmers Union president Nettie Wiebe said there has never been a convincing case made that a dual market could work and cited problems in the feed barley market as evidence that two marketing systems can’t run side by side.
“We’ve always thought the dual market was in fact just a sly way of trying to foist an open market on people,” she said.
The federal document says:
- A voluntary wheat board would have to compete with private grain companies for supplies even though it has no grain collection facilities.
- In a rising market the board’s pooled price could not compete with U.S. spot prices, denying the board security of supply and reducing the pooled price even further. In a falling market the board could be flooded with deliveries, pressuring the initial payment.
