Next Tuesday, Parliament Hill hearings open on Canadian Wheat Board legislation which CWB minister Ralph Goodale said last week will “put farmers in the driver’s seat like never before.”
After a three-hour House of Commons debate, the legislation creating a two-thirds elected board of directors and the opportunity for future wheat board votes was sent to the Commons agriculture committee.
Goodale will be the first witness and committee chair Joe McGuire said he would like to have the bill through committee by early November if possible.
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Inside and outside Parliament, supporters and critics of the bill quickly began to line up to get their say.
In the Commons, Goodale’s sales pitch drew derision from Reform leader Preston Manning, who led his party’s attack on the bill.
Liberal reform proposals are “a pale and timid imitation of what is required to prepare the Canadian Wheat Board and to equip Canadian grain growers to succeed in the 21st Century,” he told the Commons Oct. 7.
Reform said they, and most farmers, would only be happy if the wheat board is made voluntary and if a clause allowing farmers to vote new grains into the wheat board monopoly was removed.
The NDP and Bloc QuŽbecois said they will support the bill, despite some flaws.
NDP agriculture critic Dick Proctor rejected Reform’s dual-market advocacy. “We suggest that dual marketing is no more a solution in the agricultural area than two-tier health care is in the medicare field.”
Progressive Conservative MPs appeared to disagree.
Brandon MP and agriculture critic Rick Borotsik said he would like to see “an opt-in and opt-out opportunity for producers.” Just a week before, he said in an interview he would not support a voluntary board.
Goodale said his legislation will allow farmers to decide in future what marketing powers they want the board to have. Electing directors will be the first step.
And if Parliament acts quickly, “the elections to select these new directors can be held before another crop is planted.”
Business unites
Meanwhile, in Saskat-
chewan last week, the lobby for prairie small and medium sized businesses joined the campaign to convince Ottawa to remove the “inclusion” clause which would allow flax, rye, canola or oats to be added to the board’s jurisdiction if farmers voted for it and CWB directors agree.
“This would reduce, rather than increase, the options available to prairie farmers and could spell bad news for value-added processors and other small businesses,” said Marilyn Braun, Saskat-
chewan director of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business.
