After five months of secret talks, there are signs that a longstanding dispute over new transportation rules between grain companies and the Canadian Wheat Board could be coming to an end.
The chief executive officer of Saskatchewan Wheat Pool said last week the discussions are entering a final phase and could be wrapped up in time for the new crop year Aug. 1.
“We should see resolution in August,” Mayo Schmidt told reporters.
And he said the company is looking forward to participating in the board’ s commercial tenders in the new crop year.
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While cautioning there are still substantive issues to deal with, Schmidt said the pool will “take the initiative” and push hard for a quick resolution.
“Our intention is that in the very near future we will be tendering,” he said. “We do believe by August we should be in that environment.”
The board and prairie grain handlers have been at odds since last summer over new grain shipping rules, including such things as tendering, rail car allocation and each side’ s role in transportation logistics.
After several months of public and heated debate, the two sides took their negotiations behind closed doors in January and have imposed a news blackout since then.
A CWB official said the board was encouraged by Schmidt’ s comments.
“We’ re very happy to see the grain companies saying that,” said Justin Kohlman, adding the board shares the pool’ s view that talks are going well.
“We hope everything can be wrapped up in the next number of weeks and we can start the next crop year with an agreement in place,” he said.
However, he declined to comment on any of the contentious issues that have divided the two sides or how they might be resolved.
Ed Guest of the Western Grain Elevator Association was reluctant to characterize how the talks are going or make predictions as to when or how they will be wrapped up.
The two sides are closer together, but there are still hurdles to overcome, he said. He’ s hopeful, he said, but he has been hopeful in the past and then been disappointed.
