SASKATOON – Alberta farmers should be able to vote this fall on whether they want dual marketing of wheat and barley.
A committee set up last week by the provincial government to study grain marketing issues decided at its first meeting that the way to settle the marketing debate is to let farmers cast a ballot.
“We decided we’d undertake some kind of process to determine what kind of marketing system is preferred by Alberta producers of wheat and barley,” said committee chair Wayne Kriz, president of the Western Barley Growers Association.
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“The mechanism to give us that answer is a plebiscite of all Alberta producers of wheat and barley.”
He said the committee has set a target of holding the vote in the fall of 1995. Details such as what the question will say and who will be eligible to vote will be determined over the next few months.
Outline options
The committee also plans to put together an information package to define the various options available to farmers.
The creation of the committee is the government’s response to a motion unanimously passed recently by the provincial legislature calling on the government to negotiate with Ottawa for a dual marketing system, provided the province’s farmers first approve the idea in a plebiscite.
Agriculture minister Walter Paszkowski said the government wants to work with the grain industry to ensure there is a clear vision as to how wheat and barley should be marketed and to make sure rules are in place to achieve it.
“Industry has been demanding action from the federal government to free up the wheat and barley marketing system and remove the rigid controls in the domestic and continental marketplaces,” he said.
Ron Heirath, the Conservative backbencher (Taber-Warner) who introduced the original motion calling for the plebiscite, said the sooner a plebiscite is held, the better. That’s what farmers in the province want, he said, citing the large number of telephone calls he has received from producers asking when they’ll have a chance to vote.
Liberal agriculture critic Ken Nicol (Lethbridge East) said he hopes the committee devises a question that gives farmers a clear choice and is not slanted to produce a particular result. He said any question must make it clear that the Canadian Wheat Board, in its present form, cannot continue to exist under a dual market.
“If the intent with this committee is to make sure all the views are heard, then I think it’s great,” he added.
The steering committee set up by Paszkowski includes representatives from seven organizations: the Western Barley Growers Association, the Western Canadian Wheat Growers Association, the Alberta Soft Wheat Producers Commission, the Alberta Winter Wheat Producers Commission, the Alberta Grain Commission and Unifarm. All but Unifarm are strong supporters of a dual market. Notable by their absence are Alberta Wheat Pool and the National Farmers Union.
On the committee
Government officials could not be reached by press time to explain the process for selecting the committee members, but Kriz said the committee includes all groups directly involved in wheat and barley issues, along with the general farm organization Unifarm.
Alberta pool spokesperson Trish Jordan said she didn’t know if the pool had been invited to join. But she said it’s unlikely it would have agreed to participate, reflecting the company’s desire to stay out of contentious political debates and concentrate on its commercial operations.
“It’s always been our position that this is something for farmers to decide,” she said, adding that many pool members are also members of the organizations participating in the study.
Alberta pool has no objection to a plebiscite, but would prefer it be a prairie-wide vote organized by the federal government, she said, especially since the Alberta government has no authority on its own to change the rules for marketing wheat and barley.
Kriz acknowledged that’s the case, and described the vote as “just a way to find out what system farmers want.”
