Canadian Wheat Board intransigence would provoke a majority Conservative government to simply gut the board and make it unsustainable, predicts the chief official for a national farm lobby group.
Richard Phillips, executive director of Grain Growers of Canada, which supports the Conservative goal of ending the CWB monopoly, said that would be a bad thing.
He told the Senate agriculture committee April 15 that the wheat board should be more accommodating of change to its monopoly over malting barley sales to try to avert a sharp reaction from the Conservatives.
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“My fear is in the way the wheat board is playing its cards,” he said.
“It is an all-or-nothing game and they are refusing to move on malt barley in any way, shape or form. My concern, with all due respect to the current Conservative government, is that if they come back with a majority, I think there are people in there that would simply gut the wheat board.”
Phillips, a former political aide to then-Liberal wheat board minister Reg Alcock before he was hired to run the grain growers’ Ottawa office, said the result would be bad for the board and those who want it to continue to exist.
“It would be gone and it would happen in a fashion that would make it unsustainable.”
Meanwhile, the minority Conservative government still has not brought its CWB legislation forward for debate in the House of Commons and supporters and opponents say the government is running out of time to fulfill agriculture minister Gerry Ritz’s vow that the barley monopoly would be gone by Aug. 1.
Bill C-46 was tabled in Parliament March 3 to give cabinet the power to change the CWB mandate, but when MPs left Parliament Hill April 18 for a 10-day break, the bill had not been called for second reading debate and it has not been scheduled.
After MPs return to the Hill April 28, there will be at most seven weeks of parliamentary time before the summer recess. Bill C-46 would have to go through second reading debate, committee hearings that opposition MPs would try to drag out, third reading debate and then a repeat in the Liberal-dominated Senate.
“I ask every day, and I’m really surprised it has not been called,” NDP wheat board critic Pat Martin said April 17.
“If the minister wants to meet his promise that it will be law by summer, his window is fast closing. In fact, I can almost guarantee that it will not be passed by summer. There just isn’t enough time given the fact we are going to be tough on this with many speakers.”
Jeff Nielsen, president of the Western Barley Growers Association, agreed time is running out.
“The chances of getting it done by summer are fast diminishing and that is frustrating,” he said.
“They really would have to get the debate going as soon as they get back. But I don’t see Aug. 1 as particularly important. Farmers and maltsters will take this whenever it comes.”
When he tabled the legislation March 3, Ritz was clear about timing.
“We have to send a signal that we are going to stay on top of this,” he said.
“Our date is still Aug. 1 of 2008 and we will move heaven and earth to make that happen.”
On April 17, he said he has had discussions with government House leader Peter Van Loan about getting debate started, but he had no definitive deal.
“We have a spring session, a number of weeks we will be sitting,” he said.
“We’ll have to see what kind of co-operation we can get. It doesn’t serve industry well to have a piece of legislation come on board and get hammered by the opposition and go nowhere.”
