The Conservative minority government in league with Bloc Québécois MPs has succeeded in putting the Canadian Wheat Board back into the federal Accountability Act, making it subject to access-to-information requests for non-commercial information.
It was a BQ amendment that the wheat board be added again, although it reflected Conservative wishes.
The bill, a centrepiece of the Conservative agenda, now has been sent back to the Liberal-dominated Senate that took the wheat board out of the bill in the first place.
While the government urged unelected senators to respect the will of elected politicians on the wheat board issue and other key aspects of the Accountability Act that senators had changed, Liberal MPs will be urging senators to take the CWB out of the bill again.
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During a House of Commons debate on Accountability Act amendments last week, Liberal agriculture critic Wayne Easter insisted that making the CWB subject to the access-to-information act was part of a Conservative plan to undermine its monopoly status.
“It is devious because the move has nothing to do with accountability at all but instead shows that the prime minister will go to almost any length to get his way in his ideological drive to undermine the Canadian Wheat Board,” said Easter.
He used a letter from wheat board chair Ken Ritter to the Senate to support his case.
Ritter told senators as they studied the bill that being subjected to the access-to-information act would be a huge disadvantage for the board.
“The true beneficiaries of adding the CWB to (Access to Information Act) will primarily be non-farmers such as competitors and foreign antagonists that would be able to make information requests,” he wrote. “Subjecting the CWB to ATIA will put it at a disadvantage to its commercial competitors. These competitors could gain access to types of information about the CWB that the CWB could not obtain from them.”
BQ speakers said they believed in increased accountability for government that is promised by the Accountability Act and said that if the board is as transparent as Easter said, it has nothing to fear. Commercially sensitive information would be protected.
Conservative speakers suggested the real intent was to allow farmers to use the information act to find out how the wheat board uses their money, including how much is spent to promote monopoly powers that not all farmers support.
The Accountability Act is slated to take effect Jan. 1 if senators quickly deal with the new version sent to it by the House of Commons.
