There’s probably not much doubt who won the battle for media attention
when 13 Alberta farmers went to jail in Lethbridge last month.
With hundreds of sign-waving supporters rallying outside the jail,
prominent politicians speaking in support and pictures of tearful wives
and children televised across the country, those fighting to dismantle
the Canadian Wheat Board’s export monopoly could well claim a publicity
victory.
But the future of the wheat board is not being determined at public
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rallies or in jail cells.
It’s being determined in thousands of kitchens across the Prairies, as
farmers mark their ballots in the CWB directors election.
In every district, voters have a clear choice between candidates who
support the single desk and those who want to replace it with an open
market in which the board would compete in foreign markets with other
sellers of Canadian grain.
Alanna Koch is chair of CARE, an organization supporting a group of
candidates who want to end the board’s export monopoly. She is
convinced the jail issue has helped their chances.
“Our sense of things is that it certainly has been to our benefit and
to our advantage,” she said.
National Farmers Union president Stewart Wells disagrees, saying while
the jailings might influence the uninformed general public, it will
have little effect on farmers who have been dealing with the issue for
years.
“I certainly don’t know of anybody who understands the operations of
the board who will be convinced by this to change their mind,” he said.
“I’m far more likely to run into people who take a much harder line
and say this is just way over the top and grandstanding.”
Each side came into this fall’s vote with a group of dedicated and
committed supporters. The key to victory for each would be twofold: to
get as many as possible of those supporters to vote, and to gain
support from farmers who might be unsure on the single-desk issue.
Candidates from both sides say the events of recent weeks have raised
awareness of the election, but there’s no consensus on whether that
will mean a higher turnout, and if so, which side that helps.
Don Dewar, a single desk supporter running in District 9, doesn’t think
the Lethbridge events will have much impact.
“You’ll probably get different spins on it depending on who you talk
to, but I have found very little sympathy among farmers for (those who
went to jail),” he said.
District 1 candidate Albert Wagner, who supports the open market
option, believes most farmers want to end the board’s monopoly, so
anything that boosts voter turnout is good for the CARE candidates.
Buck Spencer, candidate in District 3, hopes that’s the case, but isn’t
about to make any predictions.
“How do you judge something like that?” he said. “It made a lot of
people mad. Whether that translates into votes we’ll know Dec. 15.”
Incumbent District 3 director Larry Hill said he doubts the jailings
will change many votes.
“Most farmers have a well-defined view of the single-desk debate, and
this kind of thing only reinforces their views,” he said.
CWB spokesperson Deanna Allen acknowledged that in terms of getting on
television and getting their message out to a national audience, the
anti-single desk forces made good use of the events in Lethbridge.
But she said that won’t necessarily make a difference in terms of the
future of the wheat board.
“Their stated purpose was to effect change in this organization by
making the public spectacle of turning themselves in and so on, but
that doesn’t have any effect except for the public spectacle of it,”
she said. “The real game is the election.”
