No matter what one thinks of the Canadian Wheat Board’s performance, there should be solid agreement that its mission is to serve the interests of grain producers.
That is the goal proclaimed by a series of federal governments, as well as by wheat board commissioners and farm groups. The board’s performance in relation to that goal should determine whether it lives or dies, whether it is strengthened or weakened.
Some critics have made much of the fact that the wheat board’s monopoly-selling powers began as a wartime measure. But that is irrelevant to the reasons why those powers have continued for more than a half-century after the war.
Read Also
Late season rainfall creates concern about Prairie crop quality
Praying for rain is being replaced with the hope that rain can stop for harvest. Rainfall in July and early August has been much greater than normal.
Then there are those who focus on the literal letter of the law. As one of our correspondents pointed out, the Canadian Wheat Board Act says the board’s mission is “marketing in an orderly manner,” with no mention of serving farmers’ interests. And the board is “an agent of Her Majesty,” not a farmer-owned company.
The trouble with being too literal is that the Governor General would end up running the whole country. He might do a better job than elected MPs do, but that’s not how things work.
Whatever the quibbles from historians and lawyers, the mission of the board to date has clearly been to serve farmers’ interests. Board commissioners are appointed by Ottawa, but public servants can reasonably be assigned to work in farmers’ interests, just as public servants are assigned to serve the interests of other economic and social groups. The more farmers get for grain, the more the national economy earns from exports.
It would, of course, also be reasonable to have farmers elect representatives to direct an agency that has the mission of serving their interests.
If that route is followed, it would still make sense for some directors to continue to be government-appointed. The wheat board is covered by federal borrowing guarantees, guarantees that have saved farmers many millions of dollars in interest costs on initial payments. Taxpayers’ interests should be protected if the federal government is to continue its financial guarantees to the board.
But it’s a long jump from there to the recommendation of the Western Grain Marketing Panel that the grain trade have at least three members on a proposed 11- to 15-member CWB board of directors.
Farmers need to scrutinize that idea extremely carefully. The interests of the grain trade are not the same as the interests of farmers, and including grain-trade representatives as CWB directors might mark a significant change in the board’s mission.
