A private member’s bill aimed at allowing farmers to bypass the Canadian Wheat Board if they sell their wheat and barley to a value-adding processing operation that is mostly owned by farmers seems doomed to fail.
Opposition MPs who spoke during the first hour of debate on the bill June 19 all indicated their parties oppose the bill.
Combined, those three opposition parties hold a 57-seat advantage over the Conservatives in this minority Parliament.
Bill C-300 will receive one more hour of debate, probably next winter, before it comes to a vote.
Read Also
Rural Manitoba resources slim on natural disaster planning
A study from Brandon University’s Rural Development Institute has found that many rural and small municipalities don’t have the staff or resources to make formal climate plans against natural disaster.
The bill’s sponsor, Saskatchewan Conservative MP Gerry Ritz, argued that his bill would give prairie farmers the option of making more money from their grain going to processing by allowing them to bypass the wheat board’s buy-back requirement, create jobs in the rural Prairies and protect the board monopoly from general competition.
“There is a tremendous number of folks waiting for this type of thing to happen,” Ritz said.
However, opposition critics said Ritz’s bill was a stalking horse to begin the dismantling of the board’s single desk authority.
NDP agriculture critic Alex Atamanenko called it a simplistic attempt to solve a problem “that to a significant extent does not exist” because the wheat board is not as much of an impediment to value-adding projects as critics allege.
CWB chair Ken Ritter said the board has a number of concerns about the bill.
The agency believes any decisions about wheat board rules and regulations should be made by farmers through their elected CWB directors, rather than by politicians in Ottawa.
As well, he warned that providing some processors with financial benefits not available to others is misguided and bound to create more problems down the road.
“You can’t have one group of processors acquiring grain cheaper than the others,” he said.
All processors will demand the cheapest price, he added, which will drive down prices paid to grain producers.
Also, if some Canadian processors are able to buy grain more cheaply than a foreign competitor, and that plant’s products are exported, it would inevitably result in a trade challenge.
“There is a lot of detail there that has to be worked on,” he said, adding the board has discussed its concerns with Ritz and will continue to do so.
The National Farmers Union wasn’t as diplomatic in its criticism, calling the bill ill-conceived, poorly executed and unnecessary and warning it would effectively destroy the wheat board.
“Bill C-300 is an attempt to sugar-coat a poison pill for the CWB,” said NFU president Stewart Wells.
He echoed Ritter’s concerns about the prospects of trade challenges and expressed concerns that foreign investors could find ways to circumvent the ownership requirements set out in the bill.
“There isn’t a transnational miller operating here that couldn’t make its mills qualify, either through imaginative ownership and contracting agreements or through a joint venture,” said an NFU analysis of the bill.
Wells also said suggestions that the bill would help the development of ethanol and biodiesel are wrong-headed, noting that wheat sold for non-food uses is already exempt from CWB regulations, and biodiesel is made from canola, a non-board grain.
The bill also has supporters, including Prairie Pasta Producers, a new generation co-operative that has been trying for years to set up a pasta manufacturing plant in southern Saskatchewan.
“This is just the kind of change our co-op has been asking for,” said president Wally Meili.
He said PPP has been involved in negotiations with potential partners to pursue initiatives such as value-added processing and identity-preserved production, but has been hampered in its efforts by CWB rules.
