and Sylvia McBean
Freelance writer
news
More than 550 farmers packed a Weyburn, Sask., auditorium two weeks ago to hear what one anti-Canadian Wheat Board lobby says it has uncovered about the grain marketing agency.
Producers heard speakers explain their claim that the wheat board’s “bad debt” to some former Eastern European countries is costing farmers money on every bushel of grain.
Dan Creighton, spokesperson for Canadian Farmers for Justice, which organized the rallies, said the wheat board is out $8.5 billion for non-payment of grain by Russia and Poland.
Read Also
Agriculture ministers agree to AgriStability changes
federal government proposed several months ago to increase the compensation rate from 80 to 90 per cent and double the maximum payment from $3 million to $6 million
“You start figuring out the interest on $8.5 billion dollars. You will find out where you are missing two to three dollars per bushel awfully quick,” Creighton told the farmers Jan. 20.
“It takes that much money to service the debt.”
But a wheat board spokesperson refuted the group’s charges.
Farmers don’t pay anything on the debt, according to Rhea Yates, the wheat board’s communications officer.
“The federal government guarantees all credit sales, so that if there are problems with payment it is the federal government that has credit outstanding to collect, not the CWB,” Yates said.
The federal government authorizes the board to make credit sales, Yates explained. If the terms of repayment are not met, the federal government assumes that debt.
“Farmers have no liability for credit sales, so that is why it is ridiculous to be talking about farmers losing $3 a bushel because of debt.”
Ottawa makes payments
Yates said the federal government makes those payments if the country owing the money does not. The debt then shows up in the national budget.
Over 90 percent of the board’s sales are made on a cash basis.
Art Manil, a Benson, Sask., producer who spoke at the Weyburn meeting, said in a later interview he doesn’t trust the wheat board’s explanation.
“They say their books are open but there’s more secrecy there than CSIS (Canada’s spy agency) or the RCMP,” he said. “Farmers just want out.”
Manil declined to reveal his sources of information on the wheat board cover-ups. “If I told you that, maybe the information would stop coming.”
He said sources include “people that compete with the board around the world and they don’t like their selling tactics.”
Funds raised
Similar meetings organized by the group were held in Taber and Stettler, Alta. two weeks ago, where Manil said more than $15,000 in donations were collected. The money will be used to educate farmers, he said.
