OTTAWA – If the government refuses to signal this autumn that it will open the Canadian Wheat Board to export competition, it will destroy the board rather than save it, a Reform MP predicted last week.
Elwin Hermanson said a cautious response by agriculture minister Ralph Goodale to recommendations from a government-appointed panel that feed barley, unlicensed and organically grown wheat be taken away from the CWB export monopoly will hurt the board.
“He has the power to slow the process down to the point where there is nothing substantially different about the board into the next century,” Hermanson said in an interview. “If that is the case, there won’t be a wheat board in 2002 worth being minister over.”
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He said legal challenge and farmer defiance will continue to erode the credibility and perhaps the power of the board unless the federal government introduces more flexibility into the system.
Hermanson’s comments were part of an effort by Reform MPs to use the first week of autumn House of Commons sittings to pressure Goodale to implement the Western Grain Marketing Panel recommendations.
Several MPs said they anticipate Goodale will preserve the monopoly and announce the board will be more accountable to farmers. He will then argue if farmers want more changes to the board’s jurisdiction, they can elect directors who will work for the goal.
But if the reforms are dragged out over several years, or if the government does not give the new wheat board directors the power to move quickly to end the monopoly, then “it won’t do the trick,” said Moose Jaw MP Allan Kerpan.
In the Commons, Hermanson accused Goodale of preparing to drag his feet.
“Does the minister intend to shirk his leadership responsibilities, as is his habit, by ignoring the recommendations of his own hand-picked panel?” the opposition MP asked as Parliament resumed.
Goodale did not respond directly, indicating only that he still intends to announce his decision before mid-October.
Instead, he gloated by reading comments made by Reform MPs indicating most farmers in their constituencies favor single-desk wheat board selling.
Goodale suggested Reform is being inconsistent when it “keeps pressing us to simply move ahead with the automatic implementation of the report” while some Reform MPs have conceded they oppose parts of the report.
The minister read into the parliamentary record comments made on CBC radio by Swift Current Reform MP Lee Morrison: “There are certain things in the panel’s recommendations that I think are terrible.”
Outside the Commons, Reform MPs said the fact they voice the opinions of their constituents, even if they are against party policy, shows they speak for their voters and not simply for the party line.
