REGINA – The farmers who gathered in Regina’s Turvey Centre last week insist they’re not out to destroy the Canadian Wheat Board.
All they want, said speaker after speaker at the Oct. 20 rally, is a little freedom.
“The wheat board should be an option for those who want it,” said Meota, Sask., farmer Hubert Esquirol. “What farmers want is a choice, to market through the board, on their own or through the grain company of their choice.”
As for those farmers who want to sell their grain to the wheat board, Welwyn, Sask., grain broker Alan Johnston had a succinct message: “Go ahead and do it. Just get out of our face.”
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About 350 farmers showed up for the rally, called to pressure the federal government to end the wheat board’s monopoly over wheat and barley exports.
More demonstrated in support
Organizers said they were satisfied with the turnout, although their numbers were nearly matched by a counter-demonstration outside the building in support of the wheat board, organized by the National Farmers Union.
They say a growing number of farmers support the idea of dual marketing and at the very least, the federal government should live up to pre-election promises to hold a referendum on the issue.
“We’ve got to keep hammering the message to (agriculture minister Ralph) Goodale,” said West Bend, Sask., farmer Sheldon Cooper, adding the kind of change being promoted at the rally is inevitable.
Johnston said he’s confident the majority of prairie grain farmers want dual marketing, what several speakers called a “voluntary wheat board.” But even if that’s not the case, the government should end the board’s monopoly because it’s an infringement on individual rights.
“Even if 99.9 percent wanted to sell through the board and one farmer didn’t, he should have the right to sell his grain the way he wants,” he said in an interview.
A document handed out to rally-goers as they arrived outlined the dual marketers’ case. It said the wheat board was originally a voluntary pooling organization and was given monopoly powers as a temporary measure to control prices during the Second World War.
With those powers still in place, prairie farmers are being denied opportunities to sell their grain, “contrary to principles of individual freedoms,” said the statement.
“The farmers of Western Canada are entitled to freely market the grain they produce, without the restrictions of the mandatory provisions of the CWB legislation.”
The declaration was approved by a unanimous show of hands and delivered to Goodale’s downtown constituency office.
Most of the eight speakers were restrained in their criticisms of the wheat board, saying it has done a good job in the past and can continue to prosper under a dual market. But grain broker Johnston pulled no punches in his comments.
He described the board as extraordinarily inefficient, overloaded with bureaucracy, expensive to run, secretive and just generally “doing a poor job,” adding he has potential buyers lined up from North Dakota to Idaho to China, but can’t get the board to return his phone calls to arrange the sales.
Perhaps the biggest applause came when Dave Sawatsky and Andy McMechan were introduced to the crowd. The two Manitoba farmers have gained notoriety by openly shipping grain to the U.S. without an export permit from the wheat board.
Home raided for evidence
Sawatsky has been fined under the Canada Customs Act and may face further charges. Last month, his home was raided by RCMP officers seeking evidence, a move which drew bitter comment from several speakers.
Jim Pallister of Portage la Prairie, Man., said it’s not right to use scarce police resources to “ransack farmers’ homes” when there are murderers running loose in Canada.
Alberta farmer Buck Spencer accused the federal government and the wheat board of turning Western Canada into “a police state” and issued a challenge to the authorities. Saying his 14.5 percent protein CWRS wheat is worth three times more in Idaho than at his local elevator, he declared that’s where intends to sell it.
“That’s where my wheat is going to go. Catch me if you can,” he said to thunderous applause.
