In April, assuming an election has not been called, MPs will debate a bill that would allow farmers to opt out of the Canadian Wheat Board single desk.
Last week, rural Ontario MP Bruce Stanton tabled a private member’s bill that would give prairie farmers the right to opt out of the pool for a minimum of two years by giving notice between Jan. 1 and March 31.
Bill C-619 would allow an opted-out farmer to opt back in by giving a year’s notice.
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In a Feb. 11 interview, Stanton said it balances the right of western farmers to sell their wheat and barley to whomever they want, as Ontario farmers can do, while giving the CWB the stability of knowing how many farmers will be delivering to the pool in any given year.
“I think this is a balanced bill and it is something I as a member and we as a government believe in,” he said.
Private member’s bills seldom become law.
Stanton said legal advisers have told him his proposed changes would not trigger the CWB Act requirement for a farmer vote to be held if changes are proposed to the board mandate.
Stanton said his bill has been drawn for its first hour of debate in April with the second and last hour before a vote in June or autumn.
It drew support from Saskatchewan Conservative MPs and wheat board critics David Anderson and Randy Hoback, but Liberal reaction was fierce
“This is another attempt to kneecap the CWB,” said deputy Liberal leader Ralph Goodale, who as Canadian Wheat Board minister in 1997 shepherded the modern CWB Act through the House. “Either you have a single desk system or you don’t. There’s no halfway house.”
He said director elections show solid majority support among farmers for the board single desk and he cautioned that any attempt to change its mandate without a producer plebiscite would be wrong.
Hoback, a former president of the Western Canadian Grain Growers Association said Stanton is a good candidate to sponsor the bill even though he is not from the Prairies.
“The reality is here’s an MP who is from a riding with farmers who have seen how an open market can function and the marketing agency survive since the Ontario Wheat Board lost its monopoly,” he said.
“He can explain that to farmers in Western Canada who might be a little afraid of how change would work.
As well, the Ontario MP is higher on the priority list for private member’s bills so it will come for debate than if a western MP had moved a bill.
