Farm groups on both sides of the single desk debate are working to line up candidates to run in this fall’s CWB director elections.
The Market Choice Alliance, which wants an end to the board’s single desk authority, is creating a slate of candidates who are committed to bringing in “marketing choice” if elected.
“We are supporting choice candidates and we are going to be raising money and supporting all the candidates who favour choice,” said MCA spokesperson Charles Anderson of Rose Valley, Sask.
He wasn’t sure who might run on the choice platform, but said there will be a number of high profile candidates who stand a good chance of winning.
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“We always hope to get all the choice candidates in,” he said.
Anderson added the group depends on donations from farmers and will assist candidates with signs and pamphlets and provide advice on how to run their campaigns.
Other pro-open market farm and industry groups like the Western Canadian Wheat Growers Association, the Western Barley Growers Association and Grain Vision are also expected to provide support to like-minded candidates.
Single desk supporters will also support candidates, although a number of groups contacted say they won’t have much money to put into the election.
“We won’t be getting any big bundles of cash from the grain companies,” said Ken Larsen of Benalto, Alta., a spokesperson for SaveMyCWB. “It will all be volunteer work, providing support and services like e-mail.”
He said a number of pro-single desk groups like the National Farmers Union, Friends of the CWB and Real Voice for Choice will probably talk about how they can work together to support candidates.
Bob Roehle of Friends of the CWB said individual members of that group will likely work to try to elect single desk candidates, but the organization has no plans for the election because of a lack of funds.
“At the end of the day we can’t compete with the deep pockets of the grain trade if they choose to get involved,” he said.
Last week, one candidate endorsed by the MCA and one endorsed by SaveMyCWB announced their intentions to run.
Sam Magnus, a 60-year-old farmer from Luseland, Sask., will run in District 4 on a campaign of marketing freedom along with a strong CWB.
“I see no reason the two concepts can’t work together,” said the former director of Northwest Terminal and senior player in the old Reform-Alliance Party.
In District 2, single desk supporter Gerald Pilger announced his candidacy, saying farmers should elect someone who wants to improve, not dismantle, the board.
“We only have to look at the plight of cattlemen to see how little market power individual producers have,” said the 53-year-old producer from Ohaton, Alta.
Meanwhile, NFU president Stewart Wells considered it good news that the federal government appears to have failed to change the voting rules for this vote.
The governing Conservatives introduced a bill in Parliament in the spring that would have required farmers to have grown at least 120 tonnes of the seven major grains in one of the two previous crop years to be eligible to vote.
However, Bill C-57 received only first reading before Parliament broke for the summer.
Given that the CWB election period begins Sept. 2, before Parliament resumes in the middle of the month, the legislation cannot be passed in time to affect the election rules.
In the middle of the 2006 election campaign, the government changed the voters list, requiring farmers to have delivered to the CWB in one of the previous two crop years. That forced 16,000 farmers who thought they automatically had a vote to submit a statutory declaration if they wanted to vote.
Wells said he doesn’t think that will happen this time around.
“The reason they introduced Bill C-57 is because they know that what they did in 2006 would not be tolerated again,” he said, adding that farmers have shown their willingness to stand up to government on CWB-related issues.
Here are some important things to know about this fall’s Canadian Wheat Board director elections.
- Elections will be held in the five even-numbered districts.
- The election period and candidate nominations open Sept. 2. Nominations close Oct. 20.
- To be nominated, a producer must be an eligible voter and must submit a $500 deposit and nomination papers signed by 25 eligible voters.
- Producers on the voters list will be mailed a confirmation notice by election co-ordinator Meyers Norris Penny in early September.
- Those who don’t receive a notice but who meet the eligibility criteria have until Nov. 14 to fill out an application to vote.
- To be eligible to vote, farmers must have a permit book or provide evidence that they delivered any amount of one of the seven major grains in 2007-08 or 2008-09 (wheat, barley, oats, rye, flax, canola or rapeseed).
- Producers who don’t receive a ballot can get one by signing a statutory declaration or providing the election co-ordinator with copies of a cash ticket, a grain delivery receipt or a crop insurance contract.
- The postmark deadline for voting will be Nov. 28, with ballots accepted until Dec. 5. Votes will be counted over the next two days and, barring a recount, the results will be announced Dec. 7.
