It will be several months yet before a promised monitoring agency is keeping tabs on the grain industry, says a senior government official.
Howard Migie, director general of grain policy for Agriculture Canada, said a proposal on how to structure the agency has been received from a consulting company. That design must be approved by cabinet ministers. After that, bids will be sought from companies interested in acting as the monitor.
Migie declined to hazard a guess as to when the agency might be running, but when asked if the process would take several months, he agreed.
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“I would think so, before someone is actually in place and collecting data.”
Last summer, the federal government said an independent, third party organization would be set up to monitor, measure and report on the impacts of changes brought about by transportation reforms.
The monitor’s job is to assess:
- Whether farmers are benefiting from the changes.
— Whether the Canadian Wheat Board’s ability to market grain is affected
- Whether the Canadian Wheat Board’s ability to market grain is affected
- Impact on railway, grain handling or port efficiency.
- Overall system performance.
The agency will submit reports to the ministers of transport, agriculture and CWB and publish an annual report, but it’s not designed to settle disagreements among industry players.
“It is not meant to be resolving disputes in the sense of being a mediator,” said Migie. “Its job is to provide information and an assessment of the impacts.”
CWB director Ian McCreary, chair of the board’s transportation committee, is disappointed it has taken so long to set up the monitor.
The government pro-mised the monitor in lieu of providing specific regulatory protections for farmers, he said, and right now farmers have neither.
The board wants the monitoring process to be vigorous, open and transparent, and to pay particular attention to whether farmers are getting financial benefits from the new system.
While it’s important that the monitor be set up quickly, McCreary added, it’s more important that it be given the tools to do the job properly: “I want to know that it’s done right rather than done tomorrow, although soon would be reasonably good.”
