WINNIPEG – If the Conservatives win a majority and move to eliminate the Canadian Wheat Board single desk, they will be in for “the fight of their lives,” said New Democrat Pat Martin.
“They will be in for a bloody fight and I will take it across the country,” the Winnipeg Centre NDP candidate and five-time MP said in an April 15 interview. “Is this really a hill they want to die on? Is it worth that much to them?”
Martin, his party’s Canadian Wheat Board critic whose downtown Winnipeg riding includes the CWB head office, said the Conservatives would prefer to use a World Trade Organization deal to kill the wheat board monopoly as is proposed in the latest WTO text. But he said that despite a campaign platform promise to move on the CWB file in consultation with farmers, their goal in a majority would be to eliminate the single desk.
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The Conservative platform proposes limited action to deal with barley sales and agriculture minister Gerry Ritz has promised a “methodical” approach that takes farmer opinion into account.
“Having had their nose bloodied repeatedly in their attempts to destroy the board, they have backed off a little but I think it is a ruse,” he said. “Their goal is the same and they will try to accomplish with a majority what they couldn’t with a minority. I’m putting them on notice it will not be easy.”
