Manitoba farmer representatives meeting in Portage la Prairie last week found Canadian Wheat Board consensus impossible, while pro-CWB activists found themselves preaching to the converted, and few others.
The two gatherings — a Keystone Agricultural Producers policy meeting in Portage Oct. 27 and a pro-CWB monopoly rally in Winnipeg Oct. 28 — highlighted in different ways the issue’s caustic and polarizing effect on farmers.
KAP dealt with the CWB issue a number of times during its meeting, including during a closed session at the beginning of the day, but ended with little change in its policies.
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For example, one resolution asked the government to reappoint Ian White as CWB chief executive officer of a post-monopoly board and have at least one farmer on the new appointed board of directors. However, it struck a nerve with fierce pro-monopoly farmers, who didn’t like any contemplation of life after the monopoly.
“All of a sudden we accept the fact that government appoints directors … and only one is a farmer? What about farmers electing directors? I can’t vote for this,” said Butch Harder, a former CWB farmer director and Manitoba Canola Growers Association director.
Fellow canola growers association director Ed Rempel was also upset by the resolution, which assumed the government would be successful in breaking the board’s monopoly.
“This will not work. (Stephen) Harper is a good strategist,” said Rempel.
“This is a strategy to make sure that when a voluntary board … fails, that prime minister Harper and (agriculture) minister (Gerry) Ritz can point to the board and point to western Canadian farmers and say, ‘see, I told you so,’ ” said Rempel.
“Don’t get sucked into this deal.”
The resolution’s supporters said it was not an endorsement of the government’s plans, but an attempt to protect farmers’ interests if the government is successful.
“What is important to lobby for if this moves on,” was how Theresa Bergsma of the Manitoba Canola Growers Association explained the intent.
KAP vice-president Rob Brunel said farmers shouldn’t worry that having input will tie them to an unviable post-monopoly structure.
“If it does fail, it’s (the government’s) creation that has failed, it’s not ours,” he said.
However, pro-monopoly members of KAP still worried that the resolution would be seen as a tacit endorsement of the government’s plans.
Gilbert Plains farmer Sean Gryba said trying to formulate a policy with farmers so divided and sensitive to the issue is perilous.
“What we’re trying to do is stay in the middle of the road … but sometimes it’s best off not having something in place than having something in place and people pointing fingers,” said Gryba, recommending the resolution be tabled.
It was tabled and no recommendations for the post-monopoly board were put forward.
The next day in Winnipeg, 200 to 250 farmers from across the Prairies took part in a pro-monopoly protest that featured strong words and high emotion, but was nowhere near the mass turnout of farmers that activists hoped to see.
The rally, organized by the National Farmers Union, the Canadian Wheat Board Alliance and the Friends of the Canadian Wheat Board, included speeches on the western edge of Winnipeg, a grain truck and bus cavalcade down Portage Avenue to the heart of Winnipeg and then a further series of speeches outside wheat board offices.
Politicians, CWB farmer directors and leaders of the three organizing groups spoke angrily and defiantly of the government’s actions, with one director saying he smelled a “slight scent of fascism in the air,” and one protest placard saying “Ritz is the Shitz.”
However, the farmer turnout was considered by most to be disappointing when compared to rallies from an earlier era to save the Crow Rate or demand emergency farm aid. There were few signs of a mass protest movement.
“A lot of people are just turned off about the whole issue,” said one farmer before the rally.
