Something will be missing when the Canadian Wheat Board’s new board of directors meets in Winnipeg this week.
For the first time ever, Ken Ritter, Jim Chatenay and Ian McCreary won’t be sitting at the board table.
All three were elected in the inaugural director elections in 1998 and served the maximum three terms allowed under the CWB Act.
Each carved out his own niche on the board.
Ritter served as chair for 10 years and, after first being elected as a dual marketer, became a strong advocate of the single desk.
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Chatenay was for years the only open market supporter among the elected directors and actually went to jail after participating in an anti-single desk protest.
McCreary became known as the board’s transportation expert and spent much of time fighting to achieve better rail service for grain shippers.
Here’s how each looks back on his time at the board.
Ken Ritter
After 10 years at the centre of the long and often rancorous debate about the future of the CWB, Ritter expects the organization will survive and prosper.
In fact, given the current state of the economy, he thinks some farmers who haven’t supported the single desk in the past may reconsider.
“I think the vast majority of farmers as of today would look at the board and say they’re glad to have an organization like that working on their behalf in this economic climate,” he said from his home in Kindersley, Sask.
He said the board provides farmers with financial security at a time when it is in short supply in most sectors of the economy.
With governments all over the world intervening in their economies to rescue people from the vagaries of an unregulated market, the board no longer stands out as unusual.
“The CWB model is rather minor compared to the level of government intervention in the banking system,” he said.
Ritter was first elected as an open market supporter, but quickly switched sides, saying once he got a look at the board’s sales accounts he became convinced of the value of the single desk.
“I still get criticized for that,’ he said. “But anyone who’d say, ‘I’m going to do this come hell or high water regardless of what the facts are,’ I wouldn’t want him representing me in anything.”
He was elected the board’s first chair in 1998 and remained in that position until resigning in March 2008.
Looking back, Ritter divides his time on the board into three parts.
The first two or three years were about building the organization from the ground up, dealing with issues like governance, communication with farmers and codes of practice.
The next period focused on developing a series of new pricing options for farmers to provide more flexibility and improved cash flow, along with internal re-organization to save farmers money.
The last two years have been the “time of trial”, he said, as Ottawa moved to end the single desk, adopting controversial measures to do so, including some that were later ruled illegal by the courts.
Ritter said it was a difficult and frustrating time.
“Many things could have been done better from everyone’s point of view.”
He said it’s crucial that the new board and the federal government find a way to work together and expressed optimism that will happen.
“Necessity makes strange bedfellows and I think the rhetoric is cooling down a bit,” he said. “There’s a recognition sober heads must prevail and address the real problems facing the industry.”
Jim Chatenay
Chatenay served three terms, but only faced the electorate twice.
In 2004, he was acclaimed when nobody challenged him in southern Alberta’s District 2.
It’s something of which he’s extremely proud.
“That acclamation was probably my greatest thrill,” he said.
Throughout his 10 years as a director, the Red Deer farmer fought to end to the board’s monopoly and introduce an open market for wheat and barley.
Chatenay was often at odds with his fellow directors, most of whom were single desk supporters.
He spent time in jail in 2002 after participating in a highly publicized effort by a group of anti-single desk farmers to take grain across the U.S. border in violation of customs regulations.
Chatenay acknowledged he may have “pushed the envelope” on occasion, but has no regrets about what he did as a director.
“It was a lonely task at times,” he said, adding he sometimes got depressed and frustrated. “But obviously there was a need for someone to go on to that board and represent that point of view and I was chosen to do so three times.”
Chatenay praised the board’s staff, saying they work hard and make a sincere effort to do what’s best for farmers. And despite policy disagreements, he generally had good relationships with his fellow directors.
“Most of my colleagues were very respectful and treated me well,” he said. “The whole experience has been very positive.”
While Chatenay never abandoned his belief in marketing choice, some of his views did change over time. Initially he opposed the introduction of producer payment options, insisting the board had to go all the way to an open market, but that view softened.
“We all wanted these new programs to succeed, including me,” he said.
However, Chatenay added that as more grain is priced through those programs, it reflects increasing dissatisfaction with the single desk and pooling systems. “That has to be a concern for the board in the future,” he said.
But at the end of the day – and of his career as a CWB director – the self-described maverick continues to hope for a change in the marketing system.
“If we end up as the last ones with a single desk, it’s kind of like driving the wrong way down Highway 401,” he said. “It can be done, but it’s risky, and what’s the long-term feasibility and survival.”
Ian McCreary
As his days as a CWB director drew to a close, McCreary took his family on a six-week trip to Africa.
As it turned out, that time away enabled him to get the wheat board out of his system.
“I used those 33 days as a transition and to start to think about life after the CWB,” he said.
Being a CWB director has been an all-consuming job, something that was driven home to McCreary by how different he felt after returning from his trip.
“I joked to my wife that I actually felt 10 years younger,” he said.
A fervent advocate of single desk marketing, McCreary described the last two years at the board as extremely difficult, with the agency under constant attack from the federal government and facing internal tensions with a divided board of directors.
Despite that, McCreary said he would have run again if he could have.
“I felt I was in a position to play a leadership role,” he said. “There was a certain vulnerability to the board with regard to the future of the single desk and I didn’t want to abandon it in that situation.”
But given the results of the 2008 elections, in which single desk supporters won four of five seats and signals from the government it will leave the issue alone for now, McCreary is more optimistic.
His biggest fear is that the federal government, while pulling back on the domestic front, may strike a deal at the World Trade Organization that would bring an end to the CWB.
For the Bladworth, Sask., farmer, the highlight of his time at the board was working to strengthen the board’s role in rail transportation to protect farmers’ interests, while the low points were the firings of two outstanding employees, former chief executive officer Adrian Measner and former communication chief Deanna Allen.
“Those were unquestionably the worst two events with respect to farmer control,” he said.
As for the future, McCreary said he might turn his attention to international aid and development issues, an area he worked on before becoming a CWB director.
“I honestly don’t know what I’m going to do, other than the farm has been desperately neglected for the past 10 years, so I’m going to focus on that for the while and try to improve the quality of the decisions that get made around here,” he said with a laugh.
