Federal agriculture minister Chuck Strahl has suggested that the voters’ list in the promised winter plebiscite on Canadian Wheat Board barley may include producers who haven’t sold to the board for years, if ever.
Strahl said in an interview he wants to involve all current or recent barley producers, including those who grow feed barley for domestic use and never sell through the board.
“We haven’t decided on a voters’ list but we want to make it as broad as possible so I want people who are producing barley,” he said after a Dec. 5 speech to a grain industry symposium. “People want to make sure if they are producing barley or have produced it relatively recently, they want in on the vote. In discussions with my officials, I’ve been saying let’s get as big a list as we can with actual producers.”
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Strahl was expected to announce the co-ordinator of the plebiscite this week.
His speculation drew an attack from Liberal agriculture critic Wayne Easter, who said it would be a Conservative tactic aimed at broadening the voter pool to include as many anti-board voters as possible.
“This would absolutely skew the vote against the board and in favour of the outcome he wants,” Easter said Dec. 11.
He said it was inconsistent with Strahl’s motive for interfering with the voters’ list in the just-completed director elections.
In the midst of the campaign, Strahl issued an edict that removed 16,000 permit book holders from automatic enfranchisement because they had not delivered to the board in the past two years.
They were allowed to get back on the voters’ list if they made a statutory declaration that they had indeed been involved in the industry during those years.
A broader voters’ list also would once again put the minister at odds with the CWB, which has suggested the voters’ list should be limited to barley producers with board permit books.
Meanwhile, a senior wheat board official said last week the CWB still could be a player in barley markets even if it loses its single desk authority. However, president and chief executive officer Adrian Measner said that would be true only if the board retains its single desk for wheat and durum.
“Could we still operate in barley? That’s what we’re going to look at,” Measner said Dec. 7 after he told the House of Commons agriculture committee that the board has done contingency planning on how to react if the government removes export and malting barley from the single desk.
