OTTAWA (Staff) – Ask Alberta wheat grower Pat Durnin about his expectations for the federal grain marketing panel hearings this winter and it is clear he thinks it is irrelevant.
Alberta farmers already voted on the question of how they want to market their grain, said the chair of the Western Canadian Wheat Growers Association.
It is now up to government to put into practice the Alberta decision to have a dual market allowing sales either to the Canadian Wheat Board or directly into export markets.
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“I fully expect the government of Canada to respect the results of that vote and to move immediately to implement changes to the Canadian Wheat Board to respect the decision of the people of Alberta,” he said last week, after appearing before a committee of MPs.
Government MPs have been telling Alberta that the vote is interesting only as a piece of evidence to take before the federal grain marketing panel this winter.
Alternate view
Durnin sees it differently.
For Alberta, there is nothing else to decide.
Other people also seem to think the vote was binding and that the wheat board monopoly in Alberta is history.
Vegreville Reform MP Leon Benoit last week asked questions based on that assumption.
“Alberta farmers have decided they will market under a dual-marketing system,” he told Tom Molloy, chair of the federal panel. “That has been decided.”
Molloy said the panel will look at all the evidence put before it to see what the options are.
A board monopoly in Alberta is not an option, Benoit persisted. “A decision has been made to operate in a dual system.”
