The federal Conservative government is under intense pressure from its anti-Canadian Wheat Board monopoly base to move quickly to reform the CWB voter list rules.
The government has embraced a proposal made by a review commissioned under the previous Liberal government that the CWB voters list be limited to farmers who have delivered at least 40 tonnes of eligible crop in the past two years.
And agriculture minister Gerry Ritz said that will be his CWB priority.
Supporters of the move want him to get on with it.
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“We are urging the government to bring legislation in this spring to change the definition of producer under the act so this change can be in place by the autumn wheat board elections,” Grain Growers of Canada executive director Richard Phillips said last week.
He said the national lobby group claiming 80,000 grain and oilseed producers as its base supports a voluntary CWB.
Phillips said the CWB also agrees that the voters list rules need to be revised, making it possible that a limited CWB Act amendment to change the voters list could receive majority support in the House of Commons.
“We want to see this happen quickly,” he said.
The minister’s office did not respond to questions asking if a change in the voters list is planned.
When the report of the investigation into the voters list was published in 2005, government officials suggested eliminating those who delivered less than 40 tonnes over two years would eliminate up to 50 percent of the list, including landlords and hobby farmers with little stake in the grain business
At a House of Commons agriculture committee meeting in March, Ritz said it is a government priority to reform the wheat board.
“The first step will be to make some changes in the elections law for the board of directors of the wheat board,” he said.
“The wheat board actually agrees with us in moving forward on that. We’re talking a 40-tonne requirement, you must have grown that in the last two years in order to be called a farmer. That’s not a lot. You can do that in your garden on a good day.”
But he said trying to accomplish that by regulation would lead to court challenges. A change in legislation is the best solution.
Phillips said the amendment must be introduced soon if it is to have a chance of being in place for autumn elections.
“That is a priority.”
At the Canadian Federation of Agriculture, executive director Brigid Rivoire said there is no specific policy on CWB voting rules.
“Our standard position is that farmers should decide the future of the board and anything that would undermine that, we oppose,” she said.
Phillips said the point is not to undermine the farmer voice but to eliminate those who have no real stake in farming.
He said no analysis has been done to determine if eliminating those who do not meet the 40-tonne threshold would bolster or undermine the anti-monopoly campaign.
“But at least it would be an election featuring producers and the result would be more legitimate.”
A recent producer survey by Farm Credit Canada said that among producers on the Prairies who filled in a questionnaire about financial issues, five percent in Alberta and Saskatchewan and three percent in Manitoba said “marketing freedom” was their greatest market opportunity.
Bob Roehle of Friends of the CWB said the low priority makes Conservative determination a mystery.
“Why does the federal government spend so much time and energy on grain marketing,” he asked. “There are no seats to gain.… Perhaps, the answer is as simple as that the CWB and gun control continue to be a good way to raise campaign funds.”
