LAKE LOUISE – The Canadian Wheat Board should ally with the prairie pools to survive in a reformed world trading arena.
Al Loyns, an economist at the University of Manitoba, said the wheat board will evolve into a non-compulsory grain seller and should form a strategic alliance with the three prairie pools to become a marketing giant.
The new organization would be “co-op like” and would carry with it devoted followers and expertise in the grain marketplace, said Loyns at the Western Canadian Wheat Growers Association convention at Lake Louise, Jan. 5-6.
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“The affinity of the prairie Pools for the Canadian Wheat Board implies that a vertical linkage will be struck between the pools and their affiliates. The pools have facilities and certain expertise, the wheat board has valuable expertise…It is a natural linkage,” he said.
Appease critics
Such an alliance would appease the critics who don’t like the current structure with the CWB as the monopoly grain seller, while providing board supporters with a selling agency.
However changes to the board won’t come from within. Change will happen because the United States insists upon it as part of the free trade deals it has signed with Canada, he predicted.
“I’m skeptical on the ability of the political system in Canada to make the tough decisions that are required to move in this direction,” he told reporters.
