WINNIPEG — The Liberals dove into the Canadian Wheat Board plebiscite debate June 29, as deputy leader Ralph Goodale and Winnipeg MP Kevin Lamoureux insisted that farmers, not politicians, should decide the board’s future.
During a news briefing held at Lamoureux’s office in a strip mall in northwest Winnipeg, Goodale said amendments to the Canadian Wheat Board Act in 1998 require a farmer plebiscite to eliminate the single desk marketing system.
“That (section 47.1 of the act) says very clearly, if any government wants to change the single desk marketing system of the Canadian Wheat Board, there is a way to do it,” said Goodale, who was minister responsible for the board when the act was amended.
“First of all, you consult the board of directors. And second, you hold a vote among prairie grain producers and allow them to have the final say.”
The board announced June 28 that it would poll farmers to determine if they want to maintain the single desk system.
Federal agriculture minister Gerry Ritz has said repeatedly that a farmer plebiscite is unnecessary and the government is going ahead with its plan to remove the board’s monopoly on wheat, durum and barley.
Eliminating the single desk without a farmer plebiscite would contravene the CWB Act, Goodale said.
“The Canadian Wheat Board is no longer an ordinary crown corporation, run by commissioners, entirely appointed by the federal government. That system is over and gone. It changed in 1998.”
In a release backing farmers’ right to vote on the board’s future, Goodale and Lamoureux noted that Ritz made comments earlier this year indicating he supported the concept of a plebiscite.
“As recently as this past March, at an agricultural forum in Manitoba,” the released stated. “The minister said he ‘respects the vote’ of farmers and promised he would not ‘work arbitrarily’ to dismantle the CWB’s single desk.”
Ritz’s comments were taken from a story that ran in the Manitoba Co-operator in late March after he participated in a forum in Minnedosa, Man.
The Western Producer e-mailed Ritz’s spokesperson to confirm the accuracy of Ritz’s quotes, but she hasn’t yet responded to the request.
