OTTAWA – In political Ottawa, the view that the Canadian Wheat Board must lose its monopoly on grain sales to the U.S. and Mexico is in the ascendency.
With a strong Reform voice in the House of Commons, a steady stream of lobbyists making the case and few strong voices being heard on the other side, the ‘freedom-of-choice’ side is working to make the weakening of the board seem inevitable.
This week, agriculture minister Ralph Goodale is expected to announce a public consultation process on the issue that will lead to a decision by next summer.
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On Parliament Hill, proponents of change are doing their best to make it seem unavoidable.
Last week was no exception.
- In a Senate committee room Sept. 22, trade specialist and former federal grains bureaucrat Bill Miner predicted the Canadian Wheat Board monopoly on sales to the U.S. will have to end.
“I personally doubt that a single desk monopoly seller can operate for long within a free trade area,” he said after an appearance before a Commons-Senate committee studying the future of agriculture.
He suggested that before long, the wheat board will have to become just one of the Canadian sellers into the American market.
- In the lobby of the House of Commons Sept. 22, Alberta Reform MP Leon Benoit stood denouncing the Canadian Wheat Board for “violating the spirit of the free trade deal” by not giving up its monopoly.
He was complaining about a raid by customs and RCMP officers on the Gladstone, Man. home of Dave Sawatzky, who has been sending trucks across the border in defiance of the Canadian Wheat Board Act.
Benoit said he did not think of it as Sawatzky breaking the law. “He was marketing as he chooses and he should be able to do that.”
- Meanwhile, in another House of Commons committee room, Saskatchewan Sen. Len Gustafson said he has concluded the board monopoly in North American sales will be lost.
“I think it’s inevitable,” he said in an interview. “I have always supported the board but I think farmers are demanding it. They are doing it. The trucks are crossing all the time.”
On the other side of the debate, there are few loud voices in Ottawa.
The Canadian Wheat Board advisory committee met Sept. 23 with Goodale to urge that the board be maintained and strengthened, but it gave no public statements.
Few MPs speak up strongly for the board these days, now that the NDP has been all but silenced on the Hill.
Goodale said he expects wheat board advocates to make “a very powerful argument” in favor of their position when the time comes.
But he is being cautious not to give his own position away.
Southern Saskatchewan Liberal MP Bernie Collins said there is no need to rush into a decision on the border issue.
“Let’s wait and see what the Blue Ribbon Commission concludes,” he said Sept. 23, referring to a Canadian-American committee of experts to be named this week. “I don’t think we should make any decisions until we have all the facts.”
