Interim Canadian Wheat Board president Greg Arason has become an unpaid pawn in the latest political confrontation between the CWB board of directors and agriculture minister Chuck Strahl.
Six weeks after his three-month appointment to replace fired Adrian Measner, the CWB directors still had not agreed to pay Arason. On Jan. 26, Strahl issued a cabinet order instructing the board of directors to pay the president.
The CWB planned a meeting Jan. 31 to consider the government order.
“I won’t presume what the board will decide,” director Ian McCreary said in a Jan. 29 interview. He said the issue is the board’s majority view that it, rather than the minister, sets the compensation package for the president and chief executive officer.
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“We want to be certain that our authority under the law is respected,” said the Saskatchewan farmer and opponent of the Conservative government campaign to end the CWB monopoly.
Strahl insisted in a Jan. 29 interview that under the CWB Act, he has the authority to appoint an interim president and to set his compensation level.
He said he was incensed that the CWB board, almost evenly split on the monopoly question after Strahl dumped some monopoly supporters for opponents, was making a political statement at Arason’s expense.
“What is happening is that for political reasons, they are choosing not to pay a guy that they themselves have accepted as CEO,” he said.
“This is preposterous.”
He described Arason, a former CWB president, as a man who took on the role as interim CWB president but has not been paid in six weeks and who has to put any job-related expenses on his personal credit card.
Strahl said he would take the CWB board of directors to court if they refuse to pay Arason.
It has also become apparent by both sides that a new CEO will not be selected before Arason’s 90-day appointment ends in mid-March.
