With a majority Conservative government determined to end the Canadian Wheat Board’s single desk by 2012, the fight to save it must move off Parliament Hill, say board supporters.
“Obviously we will fight it with everything we’ve got in Parliament but we have to engage the general public to stand up and be counted,” said Pat Martin, the NDP’s wheat board critic.
NDP critic positions for the new official opposition will be announced this week, but the Winnipeg MP said he hopes to keep his CWB role. The board’s head offices are in his downtown Winnipeg riding.
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“They’re in for the fight of their lives,” Martin said of the Conservatives. “They’re acting very cocky with their new majority and it is legitimate, but they are taking it as a mandate to abolish the wheat board and we don’t accept that. I think most of the fight will be extra-parliamentary.”
National Farmers Union president Terry Boehm said the NFU fight to save the CWB single desk will have to be in the countryside.
“Certainly the die is cast from the minister’s perspective and the government’s, that is clear,” Boehm said.
“My perspective is that protest and opposition from the people will ameliorate the extent to which they can move.”
Liberal MPs Ralph Goodale and Wayne Easter said in May 20 statements that the Conservatives should test their proposals in a vote of affected farmers to be legitimate and legal.
However, Ritz has indicated there will be no farmer vote. The CWB Act requiring it will likely be eliminated.
Martin said the lack of a farmer vote will be key to the NDP extra-parliamentary campaign.
“That’s where they’re vulnerable,” he said.
“The general public might not give a hoot about the Canadian Wheat Board, but they do care about democracy, and to take deliberate steps to sidestep basic rights and freedoms is not going to sit well with the public. Our basic challenge will be to go outside Parliament to engage the public and expose these heavy-handed draconian measures.”
He also said that with its demise announced by the Conservatives, the CWB should throw off the “shackles” of a government order to stick to grain marketing and not campaign politically on its own behalf. Board supporters refer to it as a gag order.
“The board should throw off those shackles because we need to hear from them, the experts, about why they are an effective vehicle and why they are the largest and most successful grain company in the world,” Martin said.
“The CWB has to be part of this debate, this campaign.”
