The Conservative government decision to offer barley farmers a “market choice” question that suggests a voluntary Canadian Wheat Board can co-exist with an open market is designed to exploit farmers’ ignorance, said a leading board defender.
Laurence Nicholson from Seven Persons, Alta., co-chair of the CWB-promoting Real Voice for Choice group, told a Parliament Hill news conference Feb. 28 that the vast majority of farmers do not understand the markets.
“I’ve personally held 18 meetings in Alberta and I guess I am sorry to say that I would say 95 percent of farmers do not totally understand the Canadian Wheat Board marketing nor do they understand the open market marketing,” he said.
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Even farmers who make much of their living by selling non-board grains using open market tools do not really understand the system they are using, Nicholson said.
“Right now, we’ve become so reliant and so comfortable with the system that we’re not sure exactly how the system works. The question I would ask is how do our three major customers, Japan, China and Mexico, buy canola from Canada? Very few farmers can answer that question.”
Nicholson said that is why Real Voice for Choice representatives were in Ottawa to argue that the government plebiscite is “wrong in every way.” Since farmers do not understand the market, they might be fooled into thinking they could have it both ways.
Alberta Conservative Ted Menzies said he was offended by the argument that farmers will not understand the questions and their implications.
He made the comments during a March 2 House of Commons debate on an opposition motion that the barley plebiscite be cancelled and new ballots with just two choices – CWB single desk or the open market – be offered.
“There is no reason (to) suggest that farmers in the West are not bright enough to understand those three simple questions,” said the former wheat grower. “I think that most of my constituents would find it quite offensive.”
The Parliament Hill visit by the pro-CWB farmers was part of a week of political manoeuvring and rhetoric in Ottawa on the wheat board issue.
Opposition MPs used question period to condemn the Conservatives for refusing to meet the pro-board lobbyists.
Conservatives countered that it was simply part of a campaign by board partisans to shore up a save-the-CWB campaign.
In fact, one of the organizers of a Feb. 24 meeting in Regina lamented in a pre-meeting e-mail that there had not been an outpouring of farmer outrage over Conservative tactics.
“The Dec. 13 demonstration in Winnipeg was extremely encouraging but to date, no groundswell has emerged from the countryside in popular support for the board,” wrote Saskatchewan farmer Paul Harmon.
