Supporters claim election victory

Reading Time: 2 minutes

Published: December 19, 2002

If the outcome of the Canadian Wheat Board directors election is any

indication, support for single desk selling is on the rise among

prairie farmers.

Candidates who support the board’s monopoly on western grown wheat and

barley exports garnered slightly less than 56 percent of the 26,852

votes cast on the first ballot, which reflects the voter’s first choice.

That’s up from 48 percent support for single desk candidates on the

first ballot in the 2000 election.

In this year’s election, single desk candidates won four of the five

Read Also

Cattle manure is cleared out of a farm yard in central Manitoba. Photo: Jeannette Greaves

Anaerobic digestion seen as possible emissions solution

Cattle manure is one of the feedstocks that can be used in anaerobic digestion systems.

directorships up for grabs.

In the 1998 election, single deskers won three of the five positions

available.

Still, open market supporters were claiming a moral victory.

“Obviously we’d have liked to have won more seats, but it is a pretty

positive result,” said Alanna Koch, chair of CARE, an organization that

supported open market candidates.

She was encouraged by the close result in three of the four seats won

by single deskers and by Dwayne Anderson’s win over incumbent single

desker Micheal Halyk in District 7. That gives the open marketers two

of the 10 elected seats on the board (Anderson and District 2 director

Jim Chatenay).

“This hasn’t set us back one speck,” said Koch.

But those claims were dismissed by delighted monopoly supporters, who

said both the popular vote and the number of seats won speak for

themselves.

“This is a victory, absolutely,” said CWB chair Ken Ritter, a

supporter of the board’s single desk authority.

National Farmers Union president Stewart Wells called it a decisive

victory, made all the more impressive given the well-organized and

well-financed campaigns by CARE-supported candidates and the highly

publicized jailing of anti-CWB farmers in Lethbridge this fall.

“This was as good a chance as they were going to have to make inroads,”

he said.

Allen Oberg, a single desk supporter who won in District 5, said the

results indicate that most wheat and barley growers believe the board

is good for their bottom lines.

“Given all the publicity around the wheat board, the majority of it

with a negative tone, I think the single desk side did pretty well,”

said Oberg.

In addition to the wins by newcomers Oberg and Anderson, incumbents Art

Macklin, Larry Hill and Bill Nicholson won re-election in District 1, 3

and 9 respectively.

Ritter said he thinks most farmers are tired of the often rancorous

debate over the board’s marketing powers that dominated the election

campaign.

But Koch said the debate isn’t going to go away and neither are the 44

percent of farmers who supported open market candidates in the election.

“I see continuing pressure on this issue,” she said, both from farmers

and from politicians and lobby groups who want to end the board’s

single desk status.

All sides agreed that the 43.3 percent turnout was disappointing and

steps must be taken to improve that for the next election in 2004.

About the author

Adrian Ewins

Saskatoon newsroom

explore

Stories from our other publications