The sale of The Western Producer came as no surprise to most interested
observers.
As far back as 1994 people have been predicting the sale of the paper
the pool has owned since 1931.
That’s when a group of disenchanted pool delegates operating under the
name Co-operating Friends of the Pool first forecast the sale of the
newspaper.
National Farmers Union president Stewart Wells was one of the founders
of that group. He said when the pool started talking about becoming a
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publicly traded company, the writing was on the wall for The Western
Producer.
The paper was originally intended to be the voice of pooling and
co-operation, said Wells. The pool relied on the Producer to convey its
message to farmers, but that is no longer the case.
“The selling off of The Western Producer just continues the deco-oping
process,” said Wells. “This is just another step of breaking the links
with farmers.”
Western Canadian Wheat Growers Association president Ted Menzies said
the sale is simply a “sign of the times.”
In the past, members of the group have been critical of the Producer’s
ties to the pool, but Menzies said those concerns abated when the pool
became a publicly traded company.
“It’s a business-oriented company rather than tied to old ideologies
and old philosophies. It has moved on and let’s hope that this
publication can too.”
The new owner, GVIC Communications Inc., has promised that it will be
“business as usual” with respect to staff and editorial content at the
paper. The company will run as a stand-alone business.
“If that’s what they’re going to do, I think that’s a plus,” said
Menzies.
That sentiment is shared by former editor Keith Dryden, who worked at
the paper for nearly 40 years.
“I was quite relieved actually. There’s a lot of alternatives I would
have thought would have been a lot worse,” said Dryden.
“I’m prepared to take them at face value. I kind of expect they won’t
change things too much.”
Bob Phillips was editor and publisher of the paper from 1973 to 1986.
He said the pool never talked about selling The Western Producer during
his tenure – not even in the lean years.
“They’ve become enamoured of making money with the newspaper. That was
never our objective.”
Phillips said the goal in his time was to serve agriculture and he
hopes the aim of the new owners will also be to publish worthwhile
material for farmers.
Harold Yelland, a pool director from 1973-1998, said the paper would
not have been sold during his day.
“There would have been a great deal of resistance to the sale, that’s
for sure.”
He doesn’t think the current board would have sold it either if it
wasn’t for outside pressure.
“I have a suspicion that the financiers, the people the pool is
indebted to, are too damn demanding and are therefore requiring that
they service their debt in the immediate term instead of looking at the
longer term and the potential.”
