For critics of the Canadian Wheat Board monopoly over export and malting barley sales, the next few months are critical, says the president of the Western Canadian Wheat Growers Association.
Larry Maguire said if the government cannot be persuaded this fall to remove the barley monopoly, it will stay in place at least six more years, if not longer.
“I believe this is the time to do it,” he said Sept. 12 after leading a wheat growers delegation to Ottawa to lobby government and opposition politicians, looking for allies. “If it doesn’t happen now, we could well find ourselves in 2003 and still have no change in barley.”
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It is all a matter of politics, trade talks and timing.
This autumn, the government will introduce legislation to reform the wheat board, giving it a majority farmer-elected board of directors with the ability to organize future votes about whether to add or take crops away from wheat board jurisdiction.
Maguire said despite growing signs prairie farmers want an option in how they sell barley, a new board of directors installed in 1998 would not want to move immediately to organize another barley vote.
Then, in 1999, international trade talks start and rules governing state trading enterprises will be a topic.
At a standstill
“Canada will not want to change anything with the wheat board then because it would look like it was doing it because of international pressure or giving away a bargaining point,” he said. “Those talks will drag on at least until 2003, so the board would be frozen.”
During high-level meetings with federal politicians and bureaucrats over four days, the wheat grower delegation urged inclusion of a clause in the new wheat board legislation that would allow a quick move to end the barley monopoly.
He said both Reform and Progressive Conservative parties said they would argue for a voluntary board.
The wheat growers also vowed to fight government plans to include a provision that would allow farmers to vote for more crops to be added to CWB jurisdiction.
He said the growth of prairie livestock feeding and the opening of the Canadian border to American barley imports mean barley will be an increasingly less important commodity for the board anyway.
