Canadian Wheat Board chief executive officer Adrian Measner was replaced, according to the man who fired him, because under his direction the wheat board had lost its way.
But in Measner’s view, his dismissal was the result of his following the CWB Act and abiding by the wishes of farmers and the agency’s board of directors.
CWB minister Chuck Strahl said shortly after announcing Measner’s firing Dec. 19 that Measner’s decision to oppose Conservative plans for the board sealed his fate.
The conclusion was reached “some time ago,” Strahl said, and was confirmed after Measner remained defiant in a Dec. 14 letter to Strahl on why he should keep his job while continuing to fight Conservative government plans.
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“We decided to get a replacement because we felt the board has shown a consistent pattern of losing its way,” Strahl said.
“What was clearly happening was a political campaign and that is just not in the interests of farmers or the wheat board or government for that matter.”
He said the board under Measner seemed to have lost sight of the fact that it is a grain marketer and not a political organization. The board decision to publicize letters from buyers questioning the future of the board was a sign that supporters of the monopoly were prepared to undermine the reputation of the CWB if they thought it would bolster their political campaign.
Measner hotly disputed the suggestion that the board was responsible for upsetting customers.
“That’s a terrible thing for him to say,” he said. “What the government has done has caused the concern among customers, who can’t understand why the board is being attacked by our own government. He’s just trying to pass on the blame.”
Strahl said it’s in the board’s interests to work co-operatively with the government.
“You don’t have to take out a party membership, you don’t have to be slavish to the party line, but you have to be co-operative,” he said.
However, Measner said the CWB Act of 1998 was designed to put the agency under the control of farmers through the elected board of directors, and that’s who the CEO is responsible to, not the government.
“The crux of this whole thing is the government trying to take control back and I think that’s bad for farmers,” he said.
Measner added that contrary to statements attributed to Strahl by the media, the minister never spoke to him about his firing and never thanked him for his 32 years of service at the board.
Strahl said the issue of a compensation package for the fired wheat board president has not been settled. Measner said the government, not farmers, should be responsible for his severance settlement.
At a news conference in Toronto Dec. 19, Liberal leader Stéphane Dion vowed to reverse Conservative moves on the Canadian Wheat Board and other policies.
“What Stephen Harper destroys, we will rebuild in co-operation with farmers,” Dion said.
New Democratic Party agriculture critic Alex Atamanenko wrote a letter to Harper complaining about the government’s “unbridled war against the CWB, an institution that belongs to (farmers) and which they believe serves them well.
“Even more sinister is the fact that you have chosen to cloak your strategy against the board by using benign words like ‘marketing choice’ and ‘freedom’ instead of calling it by its true name, a U.S.-style open market without the benefit of a U.S. farm bill.”
