When grain and farm industry officials met with federal agriculture minister Chuck Strahl in Saskatoon July 27 to talk about how to implement a dual market for grain, the Canadian Wheat Board was officially uninvited and absent.
But among the 25 people seated around the table for the day-long closed-door discussion were two members of the CWB’s board of directors.
Dwayne Anderson of Fosston, Sask., and Jim Chatenay of Red Deer were on the exclusive invitation list put together by the federal government.
Both were elected to the board as supporters of a dual market, and that’s what got them invited.
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But both say they attended the meeting as individual farmers, not as representatives of the wheat board.
“They initially intended to invite us as CWB directors,” said Anderson. “I told them right up front I wouldn’t go as a director, but I would go as a farmer, and so that’s the hat I wore.”
The stated purpose of the meeting was to talk about strategy for stripping the board of its single desk marketing powers and creating a dual market with a voluntary wheat board.
The CWB’s code of conduct states that the primary duty of directors is to always act “in the best interests of the corporation” and they must ensure their activities do not undermine the “reputation or integrity” of the board.
However it also says directors are free to participate in outside political activities and to express their personal views on issues of the day, as long they make it clear they are speaking as individuals and not representatives of the board.
Anderson said his attendance at a meeting designed to dismantle the single desk doesn’t violate the code of conduct, adding he and Chatenay discussed the issue with the full CWB board of directors the week before the meeting and received the board’s permission to attend.
“At the meeting I gave them my own personal views as to where we should go with the CWB,” he said.
Asked if dismantling the single desk is in the best interests of the CWB, Anderson said he would argue that it is.
“I believe if we continue with the status quo as the only option that we’re willing to go down the road with, we won’t be around for long,” he said. “If I look at what’s best for the organization, I look at a changed model.”
He added that during the meeting he often found himself defending the board’s activities and correcting misinformation and misunderstandings about the agency.
While Anderson was at the government-organized meeting, two other CWB directors were across the street officially representing the board at a rally in support of the single desk.
Ian McCreary of Bladworth, Sask., and Art Macklin of Grande Prairie, Alta., said in separate interviews they didn’t have a problem with the actions of Anderson and Chatenay.
They said the issue highlights the difficulties raised by the democratic election of directors.
They said the agency has to balance the responsibility of directors to represent the views of their constituents against the need to act in the best interests of the organization.
“You have to walk very gingerly when you try and balance those two pressures,” said McCreary.
National Farmers Union executive secretary Terry Pugh said he has concerns about CWB directors familiar with confidential information about the board attending such a meeting.
However, he said he will take the directors at their word that they acted appropriately and spoke only as individual farmers.
“I don’t have any evidence that they crossed any line,” he said. “I don’t want to condone their presence but I can’t really say they were doing anything bad either.”
