Agriculture minister Gerry Ritz paid his first visit to Canadian Wheat Board head office last week to meet the board and in an estimated 22 minutes, essentially read the riot act.
He told board members the single desk monopoly will end in less than 14 months and if they want to see the CWB receive the tools needed to have a fighting chance of surviving in the grain market, they should cooperate with the Conservative government to help design the post-monopoly legislation.
After summer consultations, legislation will be written and tabled in Parliament when it begins to sit again in September.
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“The ball is in their court,” Ritz said June 1. “Two things they need to come to grips with – Aug. 1, 2012 is the date and the status quo is not an option.”
He said he asked the board to work with the government to advise on what is needed “as they develop and reform into a new generation co-op, brokerage, selling shares, however they want to do it. We’re here to help them transition.”
CWB chair Allen Oberg said in a June 6 interview Ritz used the meeting to make clear legislation is coming and that there will be no farmer vote, “which I think is a huge mistake.”
He said the board will not negotiate new legislation with the government but will lay out what it believes a reformed voluntary CWB would need.
Two huge issues would be a capital base for the new company and access to grain handling facilities, perhaps through regulations.
“The ball, I don’t think, is in our court,” Oberg said from his Forestburg, Alta., farm. “We have said all along that a new organization, if it was to be created, would face many challenges.”
Last week at a board meeting in Winnipeg, the CWB agreed to work with the minister’s officials even though most do not agree with the decision.
“It’s our role to identify what would be needed,” said Oberg. “Clearly this has always been his idea, that a new organization can operate without the benefits of the single desk. We’re going to be clear on our view on that. We’re not in a negotiating mode. We’re just going to identify what will be needed.”
Ritz said that he used the meeting with the board to erase any doubt about what the future will bring in this majority Conservative government.
He said board of director members seem to get it.
“The wheat board themselves have said that if they are going to have a reasonable chance at the 2012 crop, they will have to get something in place on a parallel track as of the first of the (crop) year,” said the minister.
“I’m not going to dictate to the board, they don’t seem to like it when I do that. Having said that, they are going to have to decide how they reconfigure themselves to move forward. There’s certainly a role for them to play and I think they grasp that. I think a lot of farmers still look at the idea of pooling and it should be there for them.”
While opposition parties vow to fight the legislation to abolish the Canadian Wheat Board Act when it is tabled in the autumn, the Conservative majority ensures it can win House of Commons approval in principle.
When it goes to the agriculture committee for study, opposition MPs will argue the committee should travel across the Prairies, giving farmers who will not be given a vote on the issue a chance to voice their opinion.
Hearings also would give opponents a focal point for protest. The Conservative majority on the committee will decide whether to limit hearings to Ottawa or take them on the road.
Ritz signaled his view that committee travel once the bill is through the House may be irrelevant because of the tight deadline to Aug. 1, 2012.
“I think by fall, it may be too late.”
