A FEDERAL judge’s decision to allow the vote count to proceed on the Canadian Wheat Board’s director elections was the correct one.
But it’s only a small victory for the CWB. The issues raised before the court in this case and problems that have arisen in past elections show that a thorough review is needed.
Justice Anne Mactavish ruled Dec. 23 that votes in the four contested CWB districts could be counted. In doing so, she rejected a request from candidate and wheat board opponent Art Mainil that the vote count be halted because of irregularities.
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About 200 eligible producers were assigned to vote in wrong districts and another 792 were left off the voters’ list.
The wheat board and Meyers Norris Penny, the firm hired to co-ordinate the election, found the mistake and moved to correct it by sending late ballots, but some feel the process was already damaged and that recipients of late ballots did not have enough time to send them in.
The ruling was far from a ringing endorsement of the voting process. Mactavish left the door open for a judicial review, as Mainil has requested, saying a “serious issue” exists with the inaccurate voters list. She called it “arguably more than a technical breech….”
This is not the first wheat board election beset with problems. In the first one in 1998, the firm then hired to co-ordinate the vote found a computer error that called into question the results in three districts.
In elections since, there have also been complaints of incorrect voters lists, improper third party spending, candidate overspending and conflict of interest allegations.
Both sides of the ideological spectrum have questioned the fairness of the elections. Earlier this year, the National Farmers Union asked that Elections Canada step in to ensure proper conduct, as have many long-time wheat board opponents.
Whether the mistakes were merely glitches that had no effect on the ultimate outcomes of any of the elections matters little. There is a crisis of confidence in the system that must be fixed.
Meaningful review and changes are necessary to restore faith and remove the perception of bias in the system.
The CWB has taken a first step by announcing plans for an internal review. However, statements from the wheat board that the review will not be made public are astounding.
We wonder how the board hopes to convince doubters that the review is impartial if the findings are kept locked away in the agency’s filing cabinets. An internal review designed for CWB eyes only could lead to more outrage about board secrecy and suggested impropriety.
At least one director is pushing for an independent review, which is a better option because the review must satisfy every reasonable person who has a stake in its business. If that cannot be achieved, a judicial review may present the best course of action.
