Canadian Grain Commission staff get grief if they enforce the Canada Grain Act and they get grief if they don’t enforce the act, said a former chief commissioner
“It’s a very awkward position to be in, believe me,” said Milt Wakefield, who was chief of the grain commission from 1989 to 1998.
“The rules are rules. It just depends how the grain commission of the day wants to address it,” said Wakefield, now the Saskatchewan Party MLA for Lloydminster.
The grain commission has recently been criticized by farmers who lost money when an unlicensed grain dealer, All Grain (Alberta) Ltd., based in Bentley, Alta., went bankrupt.
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The grain commission had corresponded with All Grain owner Thomas Erling-Tyrell for two years without successfully determining whether Erling Tyrell’s operation required a licence.
Affected farmers felt the grain commission shouldn’t have allowed the grain company to operate without a licence.
Wakefield said that with unlicensed dealers, commissioners and staff can get “heavy handed,” and force the company to become licensed, since farmers can be financially hurt when a local grain outlet is forced to close.
On the other hand, if commission staff look the other way with grain dealers who should be licensed, farmers are adversely affected if the dealer goes bankrupt.
“It’s a very difficult job to convince someone they need to be licensed when there is support for the service, and the community needs it, and they want to keep doing things that make sense,” said Wakefield.
The assistant commissioner’s job has also become more difficult because there are fewer of them, he said.
“It gets harder to cover their territories.”
Before Wakefield retired, the grain commission was developing a special crops insurance plan but it was later scrapped.
“I sure thought that was the way to go,” said Wakefield.
