REGINA (Staff) – Its usefulness is questionable, it has been a long time coming and it may be flagrantly biased.
These are some of the criticisms from farm and grain industry groups about the new panel that will look into the Canadian grain marketing system.
Federal agriculture minister Ralph Goodale announced the members of the nine-person panel last week. It will organize an information campaign after harvest, which will include “town hall” meetings, and then hold hearings where people with opinions on Canadian grain marketing can speak to the panel.
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The call of bias is coming from both right and left wings of the farm movement.
Alanna Koch of Western Canadian Wheat Growers, an organization that has argued for radical changes to the wheat board, said she was happy two prominent members of her group were on the panel, but thought they were outweighed by people from organizations that do not want to see fundamental changes.
NFU furious
Nettie Wiebe, president of the National Farmers Union, said she is furious her group has no members on the panel and is demanding inclusion. She said the only farmer representatives on the panel, members of the wheat growers and the Keystone Agricultural Producers, are relative newcomers and do not represent the majority of farmers.
The wheat growers are openly antagonistic to single-desk selling and KAP is “less than certain,” said Wiebe. Nor do the various pool representatives suffice as general farmer representatives.
“They’re an elevator company . . . It’s a complete illusion to think somehow that they can front as representatives of farmers.”
Saskatchewan Wheat Pool president Leroy Larsen said the makeup of the panel is fair and the wheat growers should be happy with their representation since other organizations received fewer places on it.
Saskatchewan agriculture minister Andy Renaud said he is unhappy there aren’t more Saskatchewan producers on the panel.
Koch and Larsen said the panel would have been more useful if it had been set up sooner. Alberta agriculture minister Walter Paszkowski also condemned the time lag between federal agriculture minister Ralph Goodale’s announcement of a panel in 1994 and the appointments last week.
“I have to ask the question: why did it take 13 months to decide even who’s going to be on the panel? If there is any real concern you wouldn’t spend 13 months trying to choose the people,” Paszkowski said.
When he unveiled the panel, Goodale admitted the process had taken longer than he expected, but “I think it was time well spent to get the process launched on a solid footing.”
Speaking for the wheat growers, Koch said an investigation of the wheat board isn’t needed, since its problems and the solutions to them (dual marketing) are obvious.
