Prime minister Jean Chrétien appears to have poured cold water on a
Liberal-supported committee report that suggested the Canadian Wheat
Board experiment with ending its sales monopoly.
“We have always been a great supporter, on this side of the House, of
the wheat board,” Chrétien said June 21 on the last day of Commons
sittings before a three-month summer break.
The CWB has exclusive rights to sell prairie-grown wheat and barley
bound for export markets and on domestic sales of those grains used for
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human consumption.
Chrétien said the farmer-elected directors will consider the
recommendation but he remains a fan of the existing setup.
“I think the wheat board has been a great instrument for the farmers of
Western Canada,” he told opposition leader Stephen Harper during the
Commons Question Period. “We gave it the benefit of the doubt. It will
look at the situation. However, I do think that it is the duty of this
Parliament to respect the laws of the land that have established the
wheat board, which has been a great success over the years.”
Harper, in response to the government’s farm aid and program-funding
announcement June 20, had called on the government to let prairie
farmers make more money by processing their own grain without going
through the board’s buyback program.
He said in light of the controversial agriculture committee
recommendation that saw the Liberal committee majority endorse a
Canadian Alliance call for an experiment in open market policies for
western grain, the government should abandon its long-standing support
of the monopoly.
Later at a news conference, Harper said Chrétien appeared to have given
the government’s response to the proposal by rejecting it.
“That seems to be the direction of his answer,” said Harper, who
campaigned against the CWB when he was president of the National
Citizens’ Coalition. “He is not interested in change.”
The government’s rejection of the proposal for an experimental open
market is not a surprise.
Wheat board minister Ralph Goodale has insisted the fate of the board
should rest with farmers who can elect directors to the CWB board.
Directors have strongly rejected the proposal for an experiment,
arguing that a monopoly once suspended could not be invoked again under
international trade laws.
Still, promoters of ending the monopoly insist the committee
recommendation will be an important boost to their campaign, coming as
it does with the support of some Liberals.
A slate of anti-monopoly candidates running for CWB elections this
autumn will use the Commons committee report to argue that the momentum
in the debate is swinging their way.
