Ontario wheat growers who don’t like the rules for this fall’s vote on wheat marketing failed in a bid to formally register their disapproval last week.
Under rules set out by the pro-vince’s Farm Products Marketing Commission, a two-thirds majority will be required for the province’s wheat marketing board to retain its single-desk selling authority.
At last week’s annual meeting of the Ontario Wheat Producers’ Marketing Board, a resolution was presented calling for the rules to be reversed, so that a two-thirds vote would be needed to strip the board of its single desk authority.
Read Also
Land crash warning rejected
A technical analyst believes that Saskatchewan land values could be due for a correction, but land owners and FCC say supply/demand fundamentals drive land prices – not mathematical models
The resolution was defeated by what observers called a narrow margin, although no official count was released.
Results misleading
But at least one board director said that result doesn’t mean the province’s wheat growers support the rules of the vote.
“It was not a good indicator of opinion,” said Gus Sonneveld, who farms near Blenheim, Ont., and is a self-described supporter of single-desk selling. “Had the resolution stated the vote would be a simple majority, it would have carried.”
Members of the marketing commission attending the meeting said they had no intention of reversing the two-thirds requirement, he said, so it was a surprise the vote was as close as it was.
Marketing commission officials have said the two-thirds rule is necessary because a mandatory marketing system must have broad support from producers.
While Sonneveld supports single-desk selling, the board is staying out of the debate and some directors are refusing to discuss the issue.
Director Ken Nixon, a farmer from Ilderton and vice-chair of the marketing board, says he doesn’t have a view on single-desk marketing and he is staying “as far away from the fray” as he can.
“The growers asked for this plebiscite,” he said. “We believe our role (on the board) is to let the commission do its work and conduct a vote and we will take direction from that vote.”
Farmers will be sent an information package prepared by an industry committee and a series of 12 public meetings will be held across the province to give farmers an opportunity to ask questions and debate the issue.
The Ontario vote is being watched closely in Western Canada by supporters and opponents of the Canadian Wheat Board’s monopoly marketing status.
Art Macklin, chair of the CWB’s producer advisory committee, attended the Ontario board’s annual meeting and came back worried.
“I think they are going to have to work very hard if they want to maintain single-desk selling in Ontario,” he said, adding the vote has serious implications for western farmers.
He fears opponents of the CWB may use the two-thirds requirement as a precedent for a similar vote here. And if the Ontario board loses its single-desk status, that could give ammunition to prairie farmers to argue that farmers in the West have less marketing freedom than their counterparts in Ontario.
Currently the CWB routinely issues export permits to the Ontario board. If the Ontario board was to lose its single desk powers, the CWB could be forced to deal with a myriad of export licence requests from individual Ontario farmers and grain companies.
“That’s certainly an issue,” said CWB spokesperson Deanna Allen. “There would be different things we’d have to look at, from end-use certificates to trade agreements and other things.”
Macklin said he was surprised at how quiet and low-key the discussion was at the Ontario board’s annual meeting, and contrasted it with the often vociferous tone of the wheat marketing debate in Western Canada.
Approximately 18,000 ballots will be sent to wheat growers in October, with the results to be known by mid-November.
Sonneveld said the turnout will be crucial to the outcome, adding a large “silent majority” of wheat growers supports single desk selling.
