The House of Commons has approved the Federal Accountability Act and as it heads to the Senate, the legislation would make the Canadian Wheat Board subject to the access-to-information law.
A bid by Liberal and New Democratic Party MPs to have the board taken out of the bill was defeated in the Commons June 21 by the combined votes of the Conservatives and Bloc Québecois.
The result was a surprise, since the BQ tends to support the CWB as a close cousin of supply management and had informally indicated it would support a motion from Liberal Wayne Easter to remove the board from the act.
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Instead, BQ MPs voted with the government and the motion was defeated.
An angry Easter later accused the Conservatives of “striking a deal with the separatists” to undermine western farmers.
The Liberal agriculture critic said he will try to convince the Liberal majority in the Senate to remove the CWB from the Accountability Act in the autumn.
But agriculture minister Chuck Strahl, who said the whole drama was “a convoluted affair,” predicted the Senate will not do that:
“It’s hard to believe an unelected Senate would take it upon itself to change an accountability act passed by elected MPs.”
Even by parliamentary standards, it was a wild affair filled with political missteps and intrigue.
The Conservatives had always intended to move a motion to include the CWB under the access-to-information regime but before they could do it, Winnipeg New Democrat Pat Martin suggested it.
He said he is a wheat board defender but also an open-government advocate and he thought it would be hypocritical to exclude the board from information transparency, as long as its commercial dealings were not subject to the scrutiny.
No MP on the committee studying the accountability act, including the Liberals, objected to Martin’s motion and the amendment was made.
When other members of the Liberal and NDP caucuses caught wind of it, they began working furiously to undo what had been done.
The wheat board joined in by denouncing the move as a way to give ammunition to its competitors and critics.
In some parliamentary exchanges on the issue June 20, the tone was bitter and personal.
Easter said the wheat board should not be subject to access-to-information rules because it already is open with its information and it is not a crown corporation that lives on public money.
He denounced Martin as a stooge for the Conservatives who want to undermine the wheat board.
The Conservatives fired back.
“He does not want farmers who have been contributing to the Canadian Wheat Board, whose money the Canadian Wheat Board is using, to have the ability to find out where that money is being spent,” said Regina MP Tom Lukiwski. “I find that so contradictory it is almost laughable.”
Southwestern Saskatchewan MP David Anderson, parliamentary secretary to the agriculture minister with responsibility for the CWB file, said the board has $70 million in administrative costs and the board makes decisions that affect farmers.
“For a long time, the Liberals stopped farmers from finding out what is going on there,” he said. “We need to have access to that information.”
He said Easter is paranoid about allowing farmers to use access-to-information to ask questions about board spending, non-commercial operations and decision making.
Anderson suggested it was because he doesn’t want farmers to know “what role the Liberals have had to play within the CWB. We know that it has been significant.”
Easter said the battle over the amendment was “the beginning of the fight to preserve the Canadian Wheat Board.”
