When grain company representatives left an April 9 meeting with Canadian Wheat Board officials, they thought they had a deal.
The two sides had agreed to sign a joint letter to the federal minister of transport, saying they were ready to work together on a process to move ahead with transportation reform.
The board’s president and chief executive officer Greg Arason attended the meeting and in a later interview spoke favorably about the co-operative effort.
But it turns out he wasn’t speaking on behalf of the CWB’s board of directors, who a few days later decided to withdraw the board’s signature. Instead, they opted to send their own note to the government, emphasizing some of the issues of particular concern to the board.
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A spokesperson for the Western Grain Elevators Association said the grain companies were taken aback by the change of heart.
“We were disappointed,” said secretary-manager Ed Guest. “Mr. Arason and two executive vice-presidents had met with us and we were under the assumption that everything was moving ahead appropriately.”
Those involved say the letter itself was not that significant.
But of greater interest is what it says about the internal dynamics at the recently restructured grain marketing agency, as the elected directors and the operational managers try to sort out who is responsible for what.
“I would say it does reflect growing pains for the CWB board of directors,” said Art Macklin, a member of the board’s governance committee. “We’re still struggling to understand the various roles and divisions of responsibility and power.”
But he and several other directors interviewed last week cautioned against reading too much into the situation.
“This is certainly not a big issue to me and to my knowledge it’s not a big issue to the board,” said director Ken Ritter, of Kindersley, Sask. “Our relationship with the CEO is as good as it’s ever been.”
Arason also downplayed the significance of the directors’ action, saying he didn’t feel it undermined his position as president and CEO.
“I don’t feel in conflict with our board over this,” he said in an interview last week.
The former CEO of Manitoba Pool Elevators said the relationship between directors and senior management is an ongoing issue in every organization: “There are always discussions about whose responsibility this or that is in some of these grey areas.”
Butch Harder, director from Lowe Farm, Man., said the relationship between the directors and Arason has not been damaged by the events surrounding the letter. But he also acknowledged that many at the new-look CWB are still sorting out their roles.
“We’re all learning as we go along. There may have been some miscommunication as to what the directors had in mind and what the CEO had in mind.”
Ian McCreary, chair of the board’s transportation committee, said the events don’t reflect any internal problems at the agency.
“With a new organization, one always tries to err on the side of taking as much as possible to the directors for due process, but at the same time the CEO is involved in discussions and has to work his way along as well,” he said, adding there was no bad faith on either side.
Another director said the governance situation at the board will become more clear-cut once a full-time chair is elected.
The letter sent by the board emphasized producer involvement in grain transportation reform.
It also noted the new CWB Act requires the board to increase its functions as a commercial organization, so it must have a role in transportation of the products it markets.
“Those two thing were reflected in our letter and that would have been hard to do in a letter from us and the WGEA together,” said Arason.
Directors also wanted to avoid a repeat of the Senior Executive Officers process, an industry committee dominated by grain company and railway executives that proposed sweeping changes in grain policies several years ago.
“I think there was an apprehension that (the joint letter with WGEA) was more like the SEO process, which in our view was totally unacceptable,” said Macklin.
Harder said rather than causing any concern, the events surrounding the letter should enhance the board’s credibility among producers by showing that it is controlled by farmers through the directors they elect.
