The Alberta government will provide information to producers about the federal government’s new wheat board legislation.
Agriculture minister Walter Paszkowski said last week his department will hire a number of lawyers to go through the C-72 legislation and explain what it could mean for Alberta farmers if it is passed. Eight public meetings will be held across the province in the first week of February.
The legislation has passed first reading and will now be examined in detail by the federal agriculture committee. To become law, the legislation will have to go back to Parliament for approval.
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Paszkowski said he had many concerns about the bill. Previously he has suggested the new law could take the right to sell barley domestically out of producers’ hands. He also thinks the federal government is maintaining too much control over the wheat board’s directors and executive.
Farmers in control
Federal agriculture minister Ralph Goodale said the government has no intention of changing the way domestic barley sales work, and if there is a problem with the legislation, the agriculture committee will fix it. And he said farmers will control the board of directors and be able to tell the government who it should appoint as a chief executive officer.
But Goodale’s assurances haven’t satisfied Paszkowski.
“From my perspective, what it says in written form is what it means,” Paszkowski said.
