A Conservative government decision to hold a by-invitation-only consultation next week with supporters of the party’s promise to end the Canadian Wheat Board monopoly has provoked strong words of protest, some praise and a little bit of attempted sabotage.
On July 27 at a Saskatoon hotel, David Anderson, Saskatchewan MP and parliamentary secretary to agriculture minister Chuck Strahl, is scheduled to chair an all-day closed door session with 30 or more people “who support the advancement of marketing choice for farmers as a means for creating greater financial returns,” according to a government announcement.
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Strahl will attend and speak.
Anderson said in an interview that other groups will have their say later but the first discussion is aimed at those who long have supported what they call “dual marketing” and have thought about how it might be accomplished.
“We’re at a point where we’ve moved past ‘will we do it’ because we campaigned on it and now we want to talk about how it can be done,” he said July 14. “Farmers have made clear they want to retain a strong and profitable CWB so how can we design that while giving farmers in Western Canada choice?”
The only two CWB directors who favour ending the monopoly – Jim Chatenay from Alberta and Dwayne Anderson from Saskatchewan – have been invited, along with anti-monopoly farm groups like Western Canadian Wheat Growers’ Association and academics. The anti-monopoly Alberta government will make a presentation on alternatives while Saskatchewan and Manitoba governments have been invited as observers.
“We believe we have a cross-section of stakeholders who have thought of practical ways to move forward,” Anderson said.
Supporters of the Canadian Wheat Board monopoly, including board chair Ken Ritter, said Conservatives are being anti-democratic by not first asking wheat and barley producers if they want the monopoly to be destroyed.
Ritter said the organization and confusion over the invitation list means it was turning into “a total gong show” and reflected a decision by the Conservatives to ignore the validity of farmer opinion on the issue.
“I’m trying to find a synonym for fascist because it is an overused word,” said National Farmers Union president Stewart Wells from his farm near Swift Current, Sask.
“It is a deliberate attempt to ignore the role of the elected board of directors, to cut farmers’ representatives out of the loop.”
He said the NFU has not yet decided how it will react on July 27 to being outside the meeting room where the future of the board monopoly is being discussed by its critics.
Canadian Federation of Agriculture president Bob Friesen said the meeting is “premature” because farmers have not been asked through a vote whether they want the board to lose its monopoly powers.
“This is about transparency,” he said. “In the interests of transparency, the government should be diligent in making sure farmers affected by this are in favour of this.”
Although a list of those invited has not been made public, western wheat growers’ president Cherilyn Jolly-Nagel said she will be there. She said the government is correct to begin to move on its campaign promise and should have done so earlier.
“Giving western farmers marketing choice will give us the ability to greatly improve our prices, cash flow and delivery opportunities,” she said in a July 14 News release
news.
Gag invitation
Meanwhile, someone last week was trying to sabotage the meeting by issuing false invitations to groups that the Conservatives do not want in attendance. Alberta’s Wild Rose Agricultural Producers, as well as Manitoba’s Keystone Agricultural Producers, received invitations.
KAP president David Rolfe said in an interview his group refused, in part because it considers the process illegitimate. WRAP accepted.
“We don’t necessarily agree with the process or the policy intention but it is important that we begin to talk about how we can best do this and make it work if it happens,” said WRAP executive director Rod Scarlett.
But when he called Anderson’s office July 14 to thank officials for the invitation, he discovered it was bogus.
“We have been uninvited,” Scarlett said later. “I still think it is important to have this discussion but to only have one side at the table is a mistake.”
On the weekend, Agricultural Producers’ Association of Saskatchewan also received an invitation. APAS president Ken McBride said the invitation was confirmed as legitimate and his organization would attend.
“We’re concerned that they are putting the cart before the horse without a producer plebiscite to indicate what farmers want but we feel it is important to be there,” McBride said.
