SASKATOON – Senators touring the Prairies to gauge opinions on government reform proposals for the Canadian Wheat Board heard some stark warnings last week from opponents of the board’s monopoly.
Vickie Dutton, Senate reform advocate and farm activist from Paynton, Sask., put the issue bluntly as the week’s hearings ended.
“There won’t be enough jails in Western Canada if we don’t get this right,” she told senators.
Kamsack, Sask. farmer Stuart Leis referred to farmers who have been charged for defying the wheat board monopoly.
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“For many of us, our day in court is coming.”
Senators heard from the other side also as the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool, National Farmers Union and a smattering of individual farmers showed up to defend the board’s monopoly.
In Regina, former wheat pool vice-president and Western Grain Marketing Panel member Avery Sahl hobbled in with his new plastic knee to urge that Bill C-4 be approved so the wheat board can be reformed and saved.
“It’s time to cut out whatever is going on and get on with the legislation,” he said. “Farmers have been asking for this kind of legislation for years.”
Most senators on the agriculture committee said they presume the majority of prairie farmers support the board monopoly.
But as the senators prepared to head into Alberta this week for hearings expected to reinforce the anti-monopoly message, several were expressing unease about government wishes to impose wheat board reform against the wishes of a vocal and organized minority.
“There is a hell of a lot of dissatisfaction,” Liberal Eugene Whelan said March 26. “I’m amazed. I thought I knew the West but this is different from anything I’ve ever seen before.”
Conservative Raynell Andreychuk concurred.
“There is a lot of opposition and as a Senate, we have a responsibility to care for the interests of both regions and minorities,” said the Saskatchewan senator. “I wonder if there is a way to accommodate them and still leave the wheat board intact for those who want it.”
It is a dilemma that faced senators as they traveled last week through Brandon, Regina and Saskatoon.
“There is such a thing as the tyranny of the majority,” senator Terry Stratton of Winnipeg said when questioning a witness. He was referring to how votes could be conducted on whether to add new grains to the wheat board, but it was a comment with a broader application.
Witnesses supporting the wheat board claimed to speak for the vast majority of farmers but critics of the monopoly and the government legislation were in a majority during the Senate hearings.
“I suppose we have an obligation to try to figure out where the majority lies,” senator Herb Sparrow said in an interview. “But to be effective, legislation must be respected by all sides and we are hearing that a lot of people will not accept this.”
But Sparrow also predicted the Senate committee is unlikely to go too far in proposing changes. Amendments would have to be sent back to the House of Commons where the Liberal government would have the final say.
