PRINCE ALBERT, Sask. – The Canadian Wheat Board’s marketing monopoly isn’t the hot-button issue it once was.
That was the consensus from a small collection of candidates and grain producers who showed up for a campaign debate in District 6 last week.
But there was a discrepancy in why they thought that was the case.
Incumbent Ian McCreary, who took 52 percent of the vote during the last director’s election in 2000, attributes the board’s new pricing options with appeasing some of its critics, at least those whose objections were based on business concerns rather than politics.
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“There’s a whole bunch of those guys who have said, ‘I’ve got nothing left to fight about here.’ The temperature of the water just isn’t anywhere near as hot,” said McCreary, a strong supporter of the single desk marketing system.
His lone challenger, Gerrid Gust, who favours a voluntary marketing system, said longtime critics of the marketing monopoly have given up hope of making change and have tossed their voting ballots in the garbage.
“They’ve seen directors flip and they’ve seen directors get in and be ignored by other directors,” Gust said.
Instead of voting with their ballots, western Canadian farmers are voting with their acres, growing cereal grains as rotational crops until things change.
Earl Mickelson, one of seven producers who showed up at the debate in a district of 13,763 eligible voters, believes the BSE crisis helped galvanize support for the board.
“I think a lot of the livestock people are realizing how helpless we are in the world market individually,” said the farmer from Hagen, Sask.
He said the dismal turnout at the Prince Albert meeting shows farmers are “quite satisfied” with the way the board has conducted itself.
Dave Watkins, a grower from Aylesbury, Sask., had a different take. He chalked it up to voter apathy from the volunteer marketing crowd.
“I think a lot of people who are pro-change or pro-choice have kind of given up on being able to see their way on this.”
That isn’t the case for Watkins or the candidate he supports. Both he and Gust were disappointed by the low voter turnout at the meeting.
“We had seating for 100 and we were hoping that wouldn’t be enough room,” said Watkins.
The empty chairs at the Prince Albert Travelodge didn’t surprise McCreary, a veteran of two previous campaigns.
On the drive up from his farm near Bladworth, Sask., he told his mother he would be surprised if more than five farmers showed up because some were still harvesting, while many others had already made up their minds.
“The ballots were out 10 days ago and most of the guys I’ve talked to in this area have already voted, so I think there’s a bit of an issue there,” said McCreary.
Those few farmers who showed up at the meeting took a keen interest in the debate, which ran on well past its scheduled time.
Gust opened the discussion by telling producers how the wheat board has “chased away” value-added investments in the pasta and malt sectors and how it has placed farmers “in hobbles” and told them they can’t compete.
He said he is not out to destroy the board, just to make it the “marketing system of choice” for prairie farmers.
McCreary began his speech with an anecdote about sitting on a panel at a U.S. grain industry meeting with a senior merchandiser from Cargill who said the U.S. system doesn’t stand a chance competing against single-desk, farmer-run marketing agencies.
“That underscores in many ways why they attack the Canadian Wheat Board so vehemently,” said McCreary.
He closed by recounting how the board advocates on behalf of farmers on issues like transportation and international trade, and how it supports initiatives like the Farmer Rail Car Coalition.
