One of my history professors defended a generally-considered-as-dull prime minister, Louis St. Laurent, by saying he was able to see trouble on the horizon and steer the country away from it before it ever became a problem.
He didn’t get a lot of credit for solving big dramatic crises, but he generally prevented problems from occurring by acting prudently and wisely.
Read Also
Agri-business and farms front and centre for Alberta’s Open Farm Days
Open Farm Days continues to enjoy success in its 14th year running, as Alberta farms and agri-businesses were showcased to increase awareness on how food gets to the dinner plate.
That’s something Canada can do now with some technical glitches in Canadian grain regulations that are beginning to annoy our southern neighbours. I was in Washington, D.C. last week and the issue of unfair treatment of U.S. grain being delivered by farmers to Canadian grain elevators came up a few times.
It was clear to me that this is on the Americans’ radar.
That’s not a bad thing yet. There is no big problem. A problem will only occur if the right conditions arise, which would be better grain prices in Canada than along the northern tier U.S. states, combined with a well-functioning railway system.
That would make farmers from the U.S. do what Manitoba farmers have been doing for a few years now: load a truck and drive across the border to sell some grain. Here’s the problem: under Canada’s present grain regulations, U.S. grown wheat can only be graded as feed quality when delivered to the elevator unless it has been contracted, and having a U.S. origin can threaten to make the grain be segregated from Canadian grain, making few elevator companies want to handle it.
This applies even if a U.S. farmer grows a number of varieties that are also grown in Canada.
Fortunately this problem is understood by the Canadian grain industry and government and they have been working on it. Much of the problem would have been fixed by changes to the Canada Grain Act contained in Bill C-48, but that died when Parliament broke for the 2015 federal election.
Canada’s blockage of U.S. grain getting a fair price at the elevator isn’t deliberate, so there doesn’t seem to be anybody arguing to keep the obstacles in place.
Here’s where the opportunity and risk lies. The government could just reconstitute the relevant sections of C-48 and get the situation fixed. Or it could put it off.
As everyone I spoke to acknowledged, the Canadian government seems to understand the issue and wants to deal with it. However, it’s a new government with 1,000 different interest groups trying to get their priorities dealt with quickly, so getting something done soon means being near the top of the government’s agenda. If something isn’t near the top, it might take a couple or few years to get into the process.
I was happy to hear from Cam Dahl of Cereals Canada that he was able to introduce Canada’s new agriculture minister, Lawrence MacAuley, to Japanese and Korean wheat buyers, when he was in Japan for the G7 agriculture ministers meeting.
While he was there he also heard from U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack about the grain grading issue, Vilsack said while I was in Washington.
How quickly action can be taken won’t be known until we see what kinds of agriculture-related legislation is planned to be introduced in coming months, but hopefully this issue can be dispensed with quickly.
Dispensing with a potential future trade battle won’t make MacAuley a hero, but perhaps he, his government, and our grain industry will earn a bit of credit for avoiding an avoidable crisis. It might be dull as St. Laurent, but sometimes dullness is better than drama.
