Not a single one of the candidates running in the Canadian Wheat Board elections is publicly endorsing an open market.
None of the 13 candidates describe themselves as supporters of marketing choice, a dual market, a voluntary wheat board, marketing freedom, or any of the other terms commonly used to describe an open market.
Eight of the 13 have made clear their support of the CWB’s single desk.
It’s among the first things they state in their campaign biographies, and often the first issue they want to talk about during interviews.
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The eight single desk candidates are: Dan Gauthier in District 1, Lynn Jacobson, Brett Meinert and Stewart Wells in District 3, Allen Oberg in District 5, Kyle Korneychuk in District 7 and Garry Draper and John Sandborn in District 9.
For the other five candidates – Henry Vos in District 1, Brian Otto in District 3, Vicki Dutton in District 5, Terry Youzwa in District 7 and Ernie Sirski in District 9 – it’s unclear what marketing system they favour.
All five talk about a need for change, saying the CWB needs to be more flexible, more efficient, more accountable and more in touch with farmers’ business needs in pricing and delivery.
Those changes aren’t happening under the existing single desk system, they say, but they don’t specify what kind of marketing system they prefer.
District 1 incumbent Vos said in an interview he rejects the shorthand labels that are attached to people based on their view of grain marketing.
“The issues are more complex than that,” he said
All five say they want to change the way the board does business, but stop short of calling for an end to the single desk.
Brian Otto, candidate in District 3 and president of the Western Barley Growers Association, which strongly favours an open market for barley, doesn’t want to discuss the issue in those terms.
“Farmers are getting tired of the rhetoric around single desk versus open market,” he said in an interview. “They want a marketing system that gets the best return for their grain and so do I.”
Asked if that is the single desk or the open market, he responded, “farmers want a CWB that is more open and responsive to their concerns and their ideas”.
John De Pape, a Winnipeg-based marketing and risk management consultant and critic of the CWB single desk, has been writing a blog about election issues.
In one of the blog entries, distributed on Oct. 29, he identifies the five candidates listed above as supporting change, including changes to the single desk.
Those blogs have been e-mailed throughout the agriculture community by Western Canadian Wheat Growers Association executive director Blair Rutter.
Asked if the WCWGA, which wants to dismantle the single desk, would recommend farmers vote for those five candidates identified by De Pape, Rutter said no.
“Some of them certainly lean towards marketing choice but none of them have expressly stated that that’s their intent,” he said.
“So the wheat growers have not endorsed any candidates in this election because none of them have indicated that they are aligned with our view that the wheat board should be voluntary and that farmers should have choice.”
Organizations that sprang up to promote open-market candidates in previous elections, such as the Market Choice Alliance and Grain Vision, are absent from the scene this time around.
On its website, Farmers for Justice urges farmers to support candidates who favour a voluntary CWB and endorses Otto. The Alberta government runs a website called Choice Matters, but doesn’t endorse candidates.
Rutter said a lot of groups that want marketing freedom have decided the CWB director elections are not the best path to achieve those changes.
“The whole process is very flawed,” he said. “What’s required is legislation or regulation and convincing politicians that farmers should have choice.”
WHERE DO THEY STAND?
Candidates endorsing the single desk:
•Dan Gauthier (#1)
•Lynn Jacobson, Brett Meinert &Stewart Wells (#3)
•Allen Oberg (# 5)
•Kyle Korneychuk (#7)
•Garry Draper &John Sandborn (# 9)
Undeclared candidates:
•Henry Vos (#1)
•Brian Otto (#3)
•Vicki Dutton (# 5)
•Terry Youzwa (#7)
•Ernie Sirski (# 9)
