An Ottawa-based think-tank has provided its prescription for fixing Canada’s grain system.
In a report entitled Threatened Harvest: Protecting Canada’s world-class grain system, the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives has called on the federal government to abandon plans to deregulate the Canadian Grain Commission and Canadian Wheat Board and return to a system of kernel visual distinguishability for grading grain.
The 60-page document was slated to be made public March 31.
“Canada’s grain regulatory system has for decades supported producers, protected consumers, guaranteed quality and provided stability throughout the peaks and troughs of the commodity cycle,” said authors Scott Sinclair and Jim Grieshaber-Otto.
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“Discarding it, as proposed by the current government, would be folly.”
The report says the CGC and the CWB are feeling the wrath of a federal government that seems more interested in creating opportunities for transnational corporations than in protecting Canadian farmers and consumers.
The authors criticize specific government policies and proposals:
- Eliminating assistant CGC commissioners, appointing a partisan chief commissioner, planning to downgrade the grain commission’s mandate to serve the interests of producers, removing security requirements and eliminating mandatory inward weighing and inspection.
- The elimination of KVD, which the think-tank says threatens Canada’s reputation for providing high quality wheat, places increased liability risks on producers and is part of a general move to deregulate the seed industry.
- Ongoing efforts by the government to undermine and dismantle the CWB’s single desk marketing system, including a number of actions that have been thrown out by the courts as illegal and contrary to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
The report also urges opposition parties to work together to reverse harmful changes and prevent future ones from being implemented.
Its recommendations include prohibiting the import of unregistered wheat and non-pedigreed wheat seed into western Canada and defending the CWB’s single desk domestically and in international trade talks.
It also calls for Bill C-13, which would reform the CGC, to be withdrawn or defeated and for producer protections to be reinforced and CGC funding improved.
