If KPMG didn’t understand the sensitivity of the grain marketing debate in Western Canada before it took on the job of administering the federal government’s barley plebiscite, it does now.
Last week the consulting company found itself in the midst of several controversies relating to the vote.
- Farmers opening their ballots found printed on them an identification number that can be used to link the ballot with the producer who filled it out.
- KPMG’s election information website came under fire from single desk supporters who said information on the website is biased toward the federal government’s “marketing choice” option.
- Open market supporters said they were shocked that 83,000 ballots were distributed, almost twice as many as they expected.
- A website with an address virtually identical to the official KPMG election site appeared on the internet. Anyone clicking on it was immediately directed to a website run by the Marketing Choice Alliance urging farmers to vote in favour of an open market.
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
Jeff Thomas of KPMG, who helped design the ballot and voting process, said farmers needn’t worry about the secrecy of their ballot.
He said the identification number is there only to ensure that those farmers who vote are eligible to do so. For example, if a declaration form is found to be invalid, the number will be used to identify that ballot and remove it from the count.
“That is the only context in which that number would be used,” said Thomas.
That wasn’t enough to satisfy National Farmers Union executive secretary Terry Pugh, who noted the CWB director election co-ordinator verified voter eligibility without putting any identifying mark on the ballot itself.
“This is the first ballot of any sort I’ve ever seen with an identification number on it,” he said.
Pugh did not suggest that the number would be used by anyone to interfere with the election result, but said it’s crucial that farmers have confidence in the integrity of the secret ballot.
“It’s pretty hard to just tell farmers, ‘don’t worry’,” he said.
Brian Otto, spokesperson for the Marketing Choice Alliance, said the identification number is needed to ensure only eligible voters cast a ballot. He said he was confident it won’t be used for any other purpose.
He’s more concerned about the voters list.
KPMG sent out 83,000 ballots, including 27,500 to Alberta, 49,000 to Saskatchewan, 11,000 to Manitoba and 500 to British Columbia.
Otto said that based on Statistics Canada numbers, his organization was expecting about 44,000, including 17,000 to Alberta, 20,000 to Saskatchewan, 6,000 to Manitoba and 500 to B.C.
He can’t understand why Alberta, which produces about 50 percent of the barley grown in Western Canada, gets only a third of the ballots.
The group has asked Canadian Wheat Board minister Chuck Strahl to raise the issue with KPMG.
As for the KPMG website, single desk supporters said the opening sentence on the site, which states that the government wants to provide marketing choice to allow barley growers to “maximize their returns” while preserving a “strong CWB”, is hardly an impartial or objective description of the plebiscite.
“Saying this will allow farmers to maximize returns is a very loaded statement, because there is no evidence to indicate that is the case,” said Pugh. “In fact it’s the opposite.”
Clicking on the News link on the website connects to a federal government website that includes the government’s 2006 pro-open market task force report, along with 25 news releases from Strahl promoting plans to dismantle the single desk.
There are no links to news releases from pro-single desk sources like the NFU or CWB, or to newspaper reports.
Thomas said the policy information on the website was provided by the government and KPMG’s only role is to look after the logistics of the election.
“The barley plebiscite is a government initiative and they are … in charge of all the policy aspects of the plebiscite,” he said.
He rejected concerns that the website favours the open market side.
“We think the information on our website is impartial, and that it’s clearly stated that the information on the links does not reflect a position,” said Thomas.
Finally, anyone mistyping the KPMG website www.2007barleyvote.ca by inserting .com instead of .ca will be automatically transferred to the Marketing Choice Alliance website.
Otto said that was news to him and he had no idea why that would happen.
A search of the history of the .com web link leads to a U.S.-based internet service provider that keeps its clients’ names confidential. The site’s address was registered Jan. 22.
That’s more than a week before the KPMG address (which was registered Dec. 12) was up on the web.
