Agriculture minister Gerry Ritz in an appearance before the House of Commons agriculture committee last week once again promised that by
Aug. 1, he will have persuaded the Canadian Wheat Board to give barley producers the option of selling outside the monopoly.
He suggested that polling shows support for the barley single desk has fallen sharply since the government plebiscite last year that had 38 percent of farmers supporting the monopoly.
“That number has now shrank to half,” he said May 15. “In our polling, in my discussions with producers … that’s what we’re hearing. The board’s own polling is reinforcing that.”
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He said he is asking the CWB directors to find a way to give producers what they want.
“We continue to try to find a way forward working in conjunction with the board. It’s faster that way,” he told MPs. “Once the board buys in, there’s really no reason for anyone else to say no.”
He is to attend a CWB board meeting in late May and he expects them to have a plan. In an earlier interview, Ritz said he has asked the board to create a barley pilot project that would allow producers to buy back their grain without a CWB add-on so they can sell it in the open market.
“We’ll try to come up with programming that will address that barley freedom for this (next) crop year,” Ritz told northern Alberta Conservative MP Brian Storseth.
Meanwhile, CWB chair Larry Hill said he did not want to comment too much on the minister’s call for a board open market option by Aug. 1. He suggested there is no plan at this time for such a pilot project.
“The board looks at options all the time but we are not considering an option now that would let us do that,” he said May 13. “We have to work within the law and at the moment, the law dictates that there is a barley single desk.”
Although the Conservatives proposed legislation more than two months ago that would give cabinet the power to end the single desk by regulatory change, it has not been called for debate yet and almost certainly will not be passed into law before Parliament adjourns for the summer in mid-June.
Therefore, the current legislation will still be in place Aug. 1 when the new crop year begins and Ritz has promised an end to the barley monopoly.
In his exchange with the agriculture minister, Storseth said farmers in his riding north of Edmonton are unhappy that a road map has not yet been produced that guarantees an end to the monopoly by Aug. 1.
“It’s my strong belief that in Alberta, in my riding in particular, (support for) barley marketing freedom has risen dramatically since the plebiscite that was held,” he said. “I believe this is something that our producers are getting restless and they want to see sooner rather than later.”
Last week, the issue of farmer polls on the CWB monopoly became an issue on Parliament Hill.
Wheat board president Ian White told MPs that while the CWB has done farmer surveys, results will not be made public until the board of directors has discussed them.
Storseth said his information is that CWB polling shows a decline in producer support for the monopoly.
Ritz seemed to confirm that May 15 when he said CWB polling must reflect that since it was the result of “our polling” and “they’re talking to the same people that we are.”
Liberal agriculture critic Wayne Easter jumped on the remark, arguing that Ritz should table his poll results with the committee.
Ritz said he was not referring to Agriculture Canada polling.
“I did not say departmental polling, I said polling,” said the minister.
