OTTAWA – Within days, agriculture minister Ralph Goodale is expected to announce that a simple majority of farmers voting to remove barley sales from Canadian Wheat Board jurisdiction will be enough to convince him it should be done.
He said last week he is inclined to set the voting rules to require a simple one-vote majority as the winning margin.
There had been some speculation within the Liberal caucus that Goodale would set a higher requirement before he would agree to diminish the jurisdiction of the wheat board. One theory was that he might announce a majority of eligible voters, rather than a majority of voters, would be required to convince him.
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Reform MPs have been demanding that Goodale announce the rules, question and timing of the vote.
Last week in an interview, the minister indicated the rules for winning will be simple, and he will be inclined to act on the result.
“At the present time, my thinking is leaning very much to simple majority of those who vote,” he said.
A small turnout would favor the side best organized to motivate its supporters to vote.
Goodale would not commit the government to bowing to the will of the voting majority, but he left little doubt that would be his preference.
“That would certainly be a very persuasive result,” he said. “As a matter of pure machinery of government, it would not be appropriate to lock the government into a pre-concluded situation in advance but obviously, if there is a clear question and a clear result flowing from that question, that result has enormous persuasive value.”
The minister said he will announce his final decisions on the rules of the barley vote this week or next, once final comments from interested farm groups are received and all the reaction is analyzed.
But the outline of his plan is becoming more clear.
The vote will be held in late January or early February.
The voters list likely will be confined to farmers who have produced barley within the last three years and who sold it into the commercial market. It would include producers who sell to feedlots but not farmers who grow barley to feed only on their own farms.
The question will be simple: Do you want the wheat board or the open market to handle sales of export feed barley and all malting barley?
Goodale will not offer farmers a third choice of a “dual market” which would give them the option of selling through the board or privately. He believes that option would only weaken the board.
The question must be simple and straightforward, said Goodale.
If it is too nuanced or wordy, “it would rapidly become an ambiguous or non-understandable question. Similarly, if you have a kind of multiple choice with a menu, you are running the risk of having no majority opinion in favor or anything.”
