A controversial plan to hold a farmer vote on the future of the Ontario Wheat Board marketing monopoly was cancelled last week after Ontario farm leaders united to denounce the rules.
The Ontario Farm Products Marketing Commission had decided the Ontario board would lose its 24-year-old monopoly marketing powers unless two-thirds of wheat growers voted to retain it.
An unprecedented coalition of Ontario farm leaders, including crop and livestock sectors, demanded the rules be changed to allow victory with a simple majority. They argued that if one-third of wheat farmers could dictate to two-thirds, it could be a precedent for determining the future of other marketing boards.
Read Also
Crop conditions a pleasant surprise
Market analysts found some stressed crops and some good ones on pre-Ag In Motion 2025 crop tours,
Last week, the commission bowed to the pressure.
Chair Jim Wheeler said Sept. 17 that the November vote will be cancelled because controversy over the rules have obscured the issue of wheat board marketing powers.
“The commission has concluded that it is not possible at this time to obtain a clear expression of opinion on this issue from wheat farmers,” Wheeler said in a statement issued from his Guelph office.
He said the commission will find another way to work with the Ontario Wheat Producers’ Marketing Board “to address the outstanding question of whether the wheat board will retain its marketing authority.”
Critics of the original plebiscite rules hailed the cancellation as a victory, although all said they wished the commission had simply changed the rule to 50 percent plus one and held the vote as planned to clear the air for the wheat board.
“We are disappointed,” said William McClounie, secretary manager of the wheat board, speaking for the directors. “The board of directors wanted farmers to be able to express their opinion.”
He said the board will work with the commission to find a new way to gauge farmer opinion.
Ontario Federation of Agriculture president Tony Morris agreed the vote should have been held with more democratic rules to define a victory. He said farm leaders will work with the commission to help make that happen.
However, Morris said the retreat by the commission was a clear example of the power of farmers, when united, to influence policy.
“I don’t think there is any doubt that there was a serious under-estimation of how farmers out there felt,” he said. “Farmers came together through their organizations with one voice and objected to the principle that we felt was being broken, the democratic principle of simple majority…Since when did we decide that one-third has twice the voting power of two-thirds?”
For its part, the commission last week seemed unrepentant.
Paul Gordon, the commission official in charge of organizing the vote, said the job for the autumn and winter is to work with the wheat board to figure out its level of support in the country.
He said there was no pressure from the provincial Conservative government to retreat on the two-thirds rule. The vote was cancelled because farmers might end up voting on the rules controversy rather than the issue.
However, the commission did not err by setting the two-thirds threshold, he said.
“The main concern was this vote was a vote on wheat marketing but it was becoming very cloudy with other issues,” he said. “But I’m not sure the commission has changed its mind on the rules.”
Peter Dowling, Ontario co-ordinator for the National Farmers Union that had advocated a delay in the vote, said the key now is to figure out how to decide “what constitutes democratic opinion through fair and transparent means.”
He said any vote which allowed one-third of farmers to dictate an open market to two-thirds who prefer a marketing single desk would be undemocratic and would set a bad precedent for votes on other marketing schemes across Canada.
