Farmers who fear an assault against the Canadian Wheat Board’s marketing powers are looking to Ralph Goodale for help.
They are hoping the minister responsible for the wheat board will be on their side when the federal cabinet begins debating proposals put forward by Arthur Kroeger.
Those proposals include ending the board’s role in grain transportation, a move that the board and its supporters say would make it impossible for the agency to market grain effectively.
“Certainly we would see him as an ally,” said Sinclair Harrison, president of the Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities, which opposes the idea of taking the board completely out of grain transportation.
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He added that as Saskatchewan’s only representative in federal cabinet, it is vital that the farm groups get Goodale on-side in the upcoming policy debate: “I would hope he would be there to protect our interests through the CWB.”
Goodale isn’t saying what he thinks of Kroeger’s report, but in an interview last week he offered comments that are bound to encourage CWB supporters.
He said Kroeger’s recommendations are a long way from being adopted as government policy and emphasized that the report was intended to deal with transportation, not grain marketing.He said changes to the existing system must leave the board’s marketing mandate “fully intact.”
Goodale said reforms must be examined in context of last year’s restructuring of the CWB, which was designed to give farmers, through the directors they elect, control over the future of the board.
“The role of the board and its proper functioning in terms of its marketing mandate will be very much a factor in my own thinking as I make my assessment of what the best course for grain handling and transportation might be,” said Goodale.
Jim Robbins, of the National Farmers Union, said the fate of the board could boil down to a battle of wills between Goodale and transport minister David Collenette.
Who sides where
He expects the transport minister will likely push for Kroeger’s railway-friendly recommendations, while Goodale will favor a proposal put forward by a coalition of farm groups and the wheat board.
“Everything he has done to date indicates to me that he values the wheat board and wants a strong and viable wheat board,” said Robbins, who represented the NFU in the Kroeger talks.
A coalition of provincial farm groups, including SARM, Keystone Agricultural Producers of Manitoba and Wild Rose Agricultural Producers of Alberta, has given Goodale a copy of a report outlining what it calls the “farmers’ option.” Among other things, it would give the board a continued role in day-to-day transportation logistics. That position is also supported by the governments of Manitoba and Saskatchewan and the wheat board.
Wheat board officials say they’re confident the minister will eventually subscribe to the farmers’ option.
“All indications we’ve heard from our minister have been very positive to the farmers’ position,” said CWB director Ian McCreary, chair of the board’s transportation committee.
The board and its supporters also plan to make a case that if the federal government is to live up to the promises it made last year when it restructured the board and led to its first elected directors, it must reject Kroeger’s recommendations to change the board to a port buyer of grain.
“It makes no sense whatsoever to offer this board significant new powers and suggest no major change will occur without their agreement, and then go ahead with what Kroeger suggests,” said Robbins.
NFU executive secretary Darrin Qualman said it will “look very bad” for Goodale if just one year after putting the board under farmer control, the government then ignores the views of elected CWB directors and proceeds with changes that fundamentally alter its ability to sell grain.
