SASKATOON – Canadian members of the joint commission on grains got an earful of complaints about their report when they met with farm leaders and grain industry officials last week.
Four of the five commissioners spent most of last Wednesday closeted in a Winnipeg hotel room with a couple of dozen industry representatives talking about the commission’s interim report.
Interviews with some of those in attendance indicated there weren’t many bouquets being tossed.
“The tenor of the meeting was probably mildly hostile,” said Owen McAuley, second vice-president of Keystone Agricultural Producers.
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John Clair, vice-chair of the Canadian Wheat Board’s producer advisory committee, said the majority of people at the meeting were negative about most of the report’s recommendations, especially those dealing with the wheat board.
“The balance of the questions were very, very pointed at how disappointed the whole group was with the way the report came out so hard on the board,” he said.
There were numerous complaints about the fact that the report equated the wheat board and the EEP and lumped them together in a chapter entitled Basic Commitments to Reduce Trade Distortions.
“That in itself suggests that whatever we do here at the board is trade-distorting and I challenged the panel members that that’s without a factual basis,” said CWB chief commissioner Lorne Hehn.
Can’t be compared
He said it’s simply wrong to compare EEP, a taxpayer-funded program of price discounts and export subsidies, with the wheat board, a producer-funded marketing agency that has been around for 60 years.
Canadian panel member Milt Fair said the question of how to deal with the wheat board and the EEP was the subject of major debate between the Canadian and U.S. members of the panel in drafting the report.
“It’s an area of contention between the two countries,” he said. “I understand very well that a marketing institution and a program do have some differences, but the view from the other side of the border is there is some similarity in the result.”
Fair said the critics must remember those recommendations are part of a package that includes major moves by the U.S. and other grain exporters. The panel is not saying Canada should immediately or unilaterally change the board.
