OTTAWA – The political fight to save the Canadian Wheat Board has been a powerful illustration of why Canada needs a stronger New Democratic Party, NDP leader Alexa McDonough said last week.
She claimed the NDP has been instrumental in forcing the Liberal government to reject proposals that the board’s export marketing monopoly be diluted.
“The Liberals were well on their way to dismantling the wheat board,” she told a Sept. 5 news conference at the end of a two-day NDP caucus meeting. “There is no question of that.”
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Then, she said, the NDP became active in the battle to mobilize support.
The result, said McDonough, has been agriculture minister Ralph Goodale’s efforts to distance himself from a Western Grain Marketing Panel proposal that feed barley, unlicensed and organic wheat be removed from the board’s exclusive export jurisdiction.
“It is absolutely clear that it is only because the NDP government of Saskatchewan came out solidly, that NDP members of Parliament were speaking out and participating in meetings that the Liberal government backed down somewhat,” she said.
Goodale appears poised to announce within the next month that while the operations of the board will be reformed, its marketing powers will not be weakened.
The NDP leader rejected any suggestion that if the Liberal government does re-affirm the board’s position, it will take an election issue away from the NDP.
“I think it is a very important victory, if in fact we can secure the victory,” she said. “Far from weakening our position, it does the opposite by showing why we are needed.”
The NDP will go into the next election campaign appealing for voters to send more New Democrats to Parliament to end the conservative tilt of the current House.
McDonough said the wheat board debate was a good example of how one-sided the political debate has become, with the governing Liberals pondering a weakening of the board and the opposition Reform party urging them to go even farther.
“It was another example of the real absence of debate in Parliament,” she said. “The absence of voices which were prepared to speak for farmers and farm communities was sorely missed.”
