Farmers are being kept in the dark as talks aimed at setting up new grain shipping rules drag on behind closed doors.
Some farm leaders are unhappy about the dearth of information.
“I find it very frustrating,” said Ted Menzies, president of the Western Canadian Wheat Growers Association.
For all the information they are being given, he said, farmers wouldn’t even know that any discussions are going on, and that’s unacceptable.
“We are the ones whose livelihood is at stake in this.”
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National Farmers Union president Cory Ollikka said he is disappointed, although not surprised, that farmers are being shut out of the process.
“By and large, those kind of backroom type negotiations just don’t serve the public well,” he said.
Since returning to the table in late January, the Canadian Wheat Board and prairie grain companies have imposed a news blackout on their negotiations.
Because they’re trying to negotiate a complex package of rules and policies, they say there’s no point revealing whether progress has been made on specific points.
“It just was not productive to be hashing out pieces of the agreement or controversial points in the press,” said Adrian Measner, the board’s executive vice-president of marketing. “Until it’s all done, nothing is resolved.”
Officials from both sides say recent talks have been productive, but won’t reveal details of the discussions or speculate as to when, or even whether, an agreement will be reached.
“We are obviously far closer to a resolution than we were on Jan. 1, but whether that resolution is positive or negative, I don’t know,” said Ed Guest of the Western Grain Elevators Association.
Ollikka said he’s confident the board is representing the interests of grassroots farmers as best it can, but producers should be able to provide direct input into the discussions.
He doesn’t subscribe to the notion that sensitive, business-related negotiations are best carried out in secret, particularly when the issues being discussed are matters that will directly affect the public, in this case farmers.
“That just doesn’t wash,” he said. “The nature of public policy is that it is public. It needs to be public and it should be, and you just have to accept it.”
However, another farm leader is not concerned by the closed-door negotiations.
Don Dewar, president of Keystone Agricultural Producers, said he has thought from the beginning that the discussions should be conducted in private.
“We’ve encouraged them to do their negotiating in the board room instead of in the press, and I guess that’s where it is now.”
He said it was clear that no progress was being made last fall, when the discussions degenerated into a public war of words, with both sides trying to rally public support and publicly criticizing the other.
Measner said the board wants to keep farmers informed, but there’s not much to tell them until the whole issue is settled.Dewar added that while the talks have lasted longer than expected, he doesn’t think there’s any great urgency to come to a quick agreement.
“The grain is moving and the system is operating as efficiently as it ever has,” he said.
