Barry Wilson

The Liberals have missed another deadline for getting Canadian Wheat Board reform legislation through Parliament and partisans from both sides of the divisive debate say it is a boost for critics of the board. It means farmer elections for the board of directors will not be held until late 1998 after harvest, thwarting the dreams […] Read more

They talked about patronage and politics, freedom and choice, farming and criminals. For two days in mid-November, opposition MPs led by the Reform party used two scarce days of parliamentary time to talk about flaws in the Liberal’s Canadian Wheat Board reform legislation. More talking time will have to be allotted before the legislation passes […] Read more

As global temperatures rise over the next few decades, Canada’s politicians will have to rewrite agriculture aid programs and crop insurance rules to reflect more volatile conditions, says a federal report on global warming. And grain farmers in the western prairies might want to consider buying land in the eastern prairies if they want to […] Read more

The government’s determination to appoint the new Canadian Wheat Board president has the critics suggesting there is something fishy about the way the Liberal government goes about making such appointments. For them, fishy is spelled p-o-l-i-t-i-c-s. Just as the House of Commons agriculture committee was starting to study legislation to reform the CWB last month, […] Read more

A union whose members help keep Canada’s grain trains moving has some sombre advice for prairie farmers fighting the battle to keep the Canadian Wheat Board. Forget it. “The fight for the board is basically lost,” said Darrell Richards, of the transportation consulting firm Transport Concepts. “Farmers should realize that and move on.” Richards, once […] Read more

Optimistic predictions from politicians and economists aside, Canada’s farmers have been watching their financial bottom line deteriorate through the mid-1990s, according to a federal analysis of farm incomes. Farmers have been earning less as government support falls, production costs rise and market returns fall short of filling the void. Meanwhile, they are falling deeper in […] Read more

The Alberta government has been handed a setback in its attempt to use the courts in the battle against the Canadian Wheat Board. Federal Court of Canada judge Frederick Gibson has dismissed an Alberta application that there be a judicial review of the wheat board’s grain gathering performance. He ruled a review would be inappropriate. […] Read more

The United States last week took a faltering step backward from its pursuit of new free trade agreements and some Canadian trade specialists wondered if it might create opportunities for Canadian exporters. Their focus was on the growing Latin American market and the plan for 34 country leaders to gather in Santiago, Chile in April […] Read more

The European Union is debating a plan that would end its grain export subsidies within two to three years. After a meeting in Brussels Nov. 13 with EU agriculture commissioner Franz Fischler, federal agriculture minister Lyle Vanclief said an end to export subsidies is part of the grain pricing reform plan being pushed through EU […] Read more

CALGARY – Henry Gutting, a farmer and United Grain Growers delegate from Wilke, Sask., went to last week’s UGG annual meeting with a troubling question on his mind. What are the chances, he asked, that American corporate giant Archer Daniels Midland will expand its 45 percent share in the prairie grain company to take it […] Read more