EDMONTON – Officially, the Alberta Wheat Pool did not offer the Senate agriculture committee advice last week on how a future Canadian Wheat Board should look.
With a divided membership, the AWP declined a committee offer to appear.
Unofficially, both sides of the pool’s split personality on the CWB were displayed before the senators as they held a day of hearings in the Alberta capital.
Doug Livingstone, a former Alberta Pool president, appeared as an individual to support the government’s wheat board reform legislation.
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He said he supports the board’s sales monopoly and believes the bill would give farmers control of the board. And they would have enough flexibility to make the wheat board work well for farmers.
“I look at this as enabling legislation,” he said. “If we have a board of directors worth its salt, good people will do a good job.”
Earlier, Alberta Pool delegate Gil Balderston appeared as one of two members of the Alberta Grain Commission to denounce the legislation and the wheat board monopoly.
Monopoly denounced
Along with United Grain Growers Ltd. delegate and grain commission member Ken Motiuk, Balderston attended the Senate hearing to denounce the monopoly, to argue that the proposed new majority-elected board of directors would be a “toothless tiger” and to insist that the majority of Alberta farmers want marketing choices.
“We’ve had focus group meetings and plebiscites in Alberta to back this up,” said Motiuk.
The other two prairie pools offered a strong endorsement of the wheat board monopoly when they appeared. They both urged that the legislation be passed with amendments.
But there also were variations in the emphasis of their positions.
Saskatchewan Wheat Pool vice-president Marvin Shauf used an appearance during Regina hearings to argue the legislation should be approved, although the company would like changes to make the president accountable to the directors, to maintain full government guarantees on initial prices and their adjustments and to temper proposals to allow cash buying.
In Winnipeg, Manitoba Pool Elevators president Charlie Swanson also supported the legislation but his criticisms were stronger.
He said the government proposals could lead to the demise of the board if not carefully implemented.
His harshest judgment was aimed at the proposal to allow the wheat board to dip into the cash market for grains.
“We believe that allowing the CWB to make purchases at other than the initial price will reduce the effectiveness and ultimately cause the demise of price pooling, one of the cornerstones of the CWB marketing system,” Swanson told senators.
He urged them to recommend cash buying be deleted from the bill. He said the power to cash buy would give the wheat board the ability to direct deliveries of grain and influence the shape of the elevator system.
This would “not serve the best interests of grain companies or prairie producers,” he said.
In a later interview, Swanson said even if senators or the government refuse to delete the cash buying power, the bill still should be approved to give farmers more control over the board.
He said it will then be up to the directors not to misuse the cash buying power.
“While we’re not at all happy about the cash buying, we’d hope the directors would take a very cautious approach to using it,” he said. “I guess that is our back-up.”
