SASKATOON – Perhaps there should be a vote on who gets to vote in the upcoming barley plebiscite.
If agriculture minister Ralph Goodale asks farm groups for advice on how to make up the voters list, he won’t find any consensus. What he will find is lots of questions.
Should it be all holders of Canadian Wheat Board permit books? What about farmers who grow barley, feed it all to livestock and don’t have a permit book? And what about those who have more than one permit book?
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Should voters be required to have seeded barley in, say, one of the last three years? What about spouses who play an active role in the management or operation of a farm, or partners in a farming corporation or co-operative? Should landlords be able to vote?
Some even wonder whether votes should be weighted by production, arguing the more barley you grow, the more of a stake you have in the outcome.
One farm leader said, only half-jokingly, that maybe all Canadians should vote, since it can be argued taxpayers have a big stake in how barley is marketed.
Tim Harvie, chair of the Alberta Barley Commission, was on the committee that made up the rules for participating in last fall’s dual marketing referendum in that province. While he doesn’t support Goodale’s decision to have a vote, he does sympathize with the minister’s dilemma.
Decisions not easy
“It sounds so easy to have a vote,” he said. “But there are a lot of decisions to be made and there is no clear cut answer.”
He said the Alberta committee tried to make the voters list as wide open as possible, giving everyone with any financial interest in barley or wheat the chance to vote.
Rules required that an individual have grown wheat or barley in one of the last three years and be either a landowner, renter, participant in a crop share agreement, or partner or shareholder in a farming operation.
Lorne Pattison, a wheat board advisory committee member from Marshall, Sask., thinks all permit book holders should have a vote, whether or not they have grown barley lately.
“If I grow barley off and on, I should have the right to determine how I want to market it when I do grow it,” he said.
But Harvie said farmers without permit books should also be able to vote, since dissatisfaction with the marketing system may be the reason they don’t have a book.
Those who sell off farm
Lorne Hehn, the board’s chief commissioner, said the vote should be limited to those who sell barley off their farm, whether to the board, domestic buyers or neighbors. Those who feed all their barley to their own livestock shouldn’t vote.
Larry Maguire, president of the Western Canadian Wheat Growers Association, thinks all grain growers, no matter what they do with their crop, should vote. He also thinks that those with a bigger stake in the industry should have a proportionally bigger say in the outcome, perhaps through a weighted vote.
While there is disagreement over who should vote, there is consensus on other issues. Everyone agrees the question should offer a clear choice between two distinct options, and the result should be binding.
Most also feel that 50 percent plus one of those voting should be enough to declare a winner, saying that’s the way governments get elected.
However Merv Lloyd, a D’Arcy, Sask. farmer and co-organizer of a pro-wheat board rally in Rosetown this summer, thinks a higher standard, like 60 percent, should be required to take barley away from the board.
It’s not unusual for organizations to require a two-thirds majority to change a constitution or bylaw, and this is much the same, said Lloyd.
A 1973 vote on rapeseed marketing required a 60 percent majority to put that crop under the board.
