Reform party trade critic Charlie Penson says the Canadian Wheat Board has been making political friends in the United States, for all the wrong reasons.
The Peace River MP said in an interview last week he is convinced that despite Canadian denials, the wheat board made a secret commitment to Americans earlier this year that it would control exports south, keeping them close to the 1995 voluntary cap of 1.5 million tonnes.
He figures it was done at the direction of the government.
“The Americans tell us they were given assurances we would live within the 1995 cap and I believe them,” said Penson. “I suspect the minister gave a directive to the CWB to back off on sales to the U.S.”
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And that makes some Americans realize that if the wheat board lost its export monopoly, there would be no controls on shipments south, other than market price and demand, according to the MP.
“I definitely think some American politicians are deciding the wheat board should not be the target some of them have made it,” Penson said. “Without it, they can see wheat coming down from the southern prairies.”
A report tabled in the House of Commons last week from the Canadian section of the Canada-United States Inter-parliamentary Group told the same story, in more circumspect language.
“A view was expressed that, contrary to the opinion held by some Americans and particularly grain producers near the border, the board is one of the United States’ biggest allies in the sense that the board’s elimination would result in a flood of shipments of grain south from Canada,” said the report about the mid-September meetings in Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island.
Penson identified the main American speaker as Minnesota Democratic representative Collin Peterson.
He said Peterson insisted a group of American politicians that toured Canada earlier this year received a commitment during a Winnipeg meeting with CWB officials that exports would be kept in the 1.5 million tonne range.
In September in Washington, the chair of the House of Representatives agriculture committee published a letter accusing Canadian deputy agriculture minister Frank Claydon of making, and then breaking, a similar private commitment during an Ottawa meeting.
In response, federal politicians, wheat board representatives and Claydon have said the Americans misunderstood.
Canada has promised to keep them informed of best estimates on exports and has done that. There was no commitment to limit exports to the 1.5 million tonne level. Market demand will determine sales. In fact, Canadian exports to the U.S. during the past year were slightly more than 1.5 million tonnes.
Penson said he has come to believe the Americans when they say they received secret assurances of export restraint.
He said it means the Americans are not too keen about the Reform policy that the wheat board lose its monopoly.
