The Canadian Wheat Board will decide this week whether to take part in CWB minister Chuck Strahl’s task force charged with figuring out the details of dismantling the board’s single desk.
The 15 directors must make a difficult choice between two options.
The wheat board could join the task force, on the premise that being at the table affords the agency the best, and perhaps only, way to exert some influence on the government’s plans.
Or, it could decline to participate, based on the view that the end result of the task force is a foregone conclusion and because the board has always insisted that it shouldn’t be up to government to decide the board’s fate.
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“We’ve said all along that farmers should decide what the future of the organization is, so would we abandon that first principle by participating?” said Deanna Allen, the CWB’s vice-president of public affairs and farmer relations.
The directors will consider the options at a board meeting on Sept. 27 and 28.
The government announced last week its plans for an eight-member task force of “experts in grain marketing” to identify technical and transition issues associated with how the board could operate in an open market.
One of those eight positions is reserved for the CWB and another is for the chair, Howard Migie of Agriculture Canada. The other six members named last week are all proponents of the government’s plans to dismantle the single desk.
The task force is to look at issues such as risk management, funding, the board’s future role in market development and research and a variety of financial questions.
Farm groups that support the government’s plans urged the board to participate, saying its input is vital in ensuring the board remains as a strong and viable player in an open market.
“It’s important for the CWB to participate to ensure all its operating concerns are addressed,” said Western Canadian Wheat Growers Association president Cherilyn Jolly-Nagel.
After its initial meeting, the task force will have four weeks to complete its task and report back to the minister.
That tight deadline is one of the many concerns the board has about the process.
“I’d hate to think that this four-week brainstorming session among people who all think the same is what will deliver the plan for the minister to move on,” said Allen.
She said the CWB directors, the majority of whom favour retaining the single desk, will have to decide whether participating in the task force will make any difference to the outcome and whether it’s worth the board’s time and resources to take part.
In his Sept. 19 announcement, Strahl said he was disappointed the CWB had not yet responded to his invitation to join the task force.
Allen said that doesn’t tell the whole story.
She said the board received an invitation to participate on Sept. 5. The board called the minister’s chief of staff the next day asking for more details, but received no response. It then sent a letter to the minister Sept. 8, repeating its request for more details about the process. Again, it received no response before the Sept. 19 announcement.
“We’re very disappointed that we didn’t get an answer to our letter and that (Strahl) completely ignored our requests,” said Allen.
The WCWGA and the Western Barley Growers Association issued statements praising the make-up of the task force and saying its work will be crucial to ensuring a smooth transition to an open market.
However other farm groups were critical of the government’s plans.
Ken McBride, president of Agricultural Producers Association of Saskatchewan, said the task force membership doesn’t reflect the variety of views and interests of prairie producers.
He also said the task force’s structure and timetable won’t allow for adequate response from producers.
“This task force reflects a desire by government to ram their decision forward without hearing from producers, and we are disappointed in their actions,” said McBride.
The National Farmers Union also criticized the task force, saying the government is deliberately cutting grassroots farmers out of the process and is being dishonest when it states that it wants to retain a viable wheat board.
Allen also took the government and its supporters to task for their claims to want to preserve a strong CWB in an open market environment.
“To promise a marketing choice and a strong viable wheat board is a promise they will never be able to keep,” she said.
“It’s the ultimate in political spin. They’ve got to say that to try to get farmers on-side.”
In addition to Migie, the task force members are: Mike Bast, WCWGA chair; Brenda Brindle, chair of the Alberta Grain Commission; John Groenewegen of JRG Consulting Group; Rob Davies, chief executive officer of Weyburn Inland Terminal; Paul Orsak, chair of Grain Vision; and Bruce Johnson of Windrow Consulting.
