SASKATOON – If truth-in-labeling laws applied in election campaigns, the two candidates running for the Canadian Wheat Board advisory committee in Peace River might have some explaining to do.
Both have attached labels to their opponent, but both reject the labels they’ve been stuck with as unfair and misleading.
As far as incumbent Art Macklin is concerned, his opponent is an anti-wheat board candidate whose support for a continental barley market would lead to the demise of the agency as an effective selling tool.
As far as Don Wieben is concerned, his opponent is out of touch with today’s farmers, and his “blind loyalty” to the status quo will eventually do more damage to the board than would a dual market.
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The two candidates disagree about most things when it comes to grain marketing. But they do share a dislike for the way their views are being characterized in the campaign.
Wieben becomes noticeably upset when he’s labelled as anti-wheat board.
“I can assure everyone I do support the CWB system, as do most farmers in this area,” he said in an interview from his farm at Fairview, about 100 kilometres north of Grande Prairie.
Labeling people as pro- or anti-wheat board is too simplistic, said Wieben, and does a disservice to people who support the board but are looking for ways to help the marketing agency meet changing demands of farmers.
“If you have to be either pro- or anti-board, that leaves no middle of the road, where you can pick up good ideas from both sides and develop a strong marketing system,” he said.
That doesn’t wash with Macklin, who says there is no middle ground on support for the wheat board .
“On this issue people have to make a clear choice,” he said. “The foundation of the CWB’s effectiveness is single-desk selling and price pooling. Anybody who’s advocating this so-called dual market is really deceiving producers.”
And the National Farmers Union president doesn’t like it when Wieben says he’s out of touch with farmers.
Principles of board must remain
Macklin says he’s willing to look at changes in the board’s operations, as long as the fundamental principles of single-desk selling and price pooling aren’t compromised.
Wieben said the world has changed dramatically in the last 20 years and the wheat board must change as well.
That means cutting administration costs, doing more to reduce the cost of moving grain from farms to export position, ending one-sided delivery contracts that give the board too much control over farmers and electing board commissioners.
It also means allowing farmers and grain merchants to sell barley directly to buyers in the U.S. Barley sales south of the border make up such a small proportion of the board’s business that such a move would be no threat to the agency’s continued existence, he said.
“I’d like to see us take a small step and let the continental market go ahead and look at it and see what happens,” said Wieben, adding he doesn’t support a dual market for wheat right now.
Macklin doesn’t dispute that the world has changed, but he also says the board has changed with it. Despite the disappearance of the Soviet Union as a major market and the elimination of state-buying agencies in many countries, and in the face of massive export subsidies by the U.S., Canada has maintained its market share and obtained good prices for farmers. And the board provides more market information than ever to grain growers.
Wieben admits it will be difficult to win against Macklin, who has a high public profile as president of the NFU. The key to his chances, he says, is getting more people to vote. Four years ago, only 27 percent of the district’s eligible farmers cast ballots.
“I think the NFU tends to have a relatively small, radical, committed group of supporters,” he said. “I want to get those who don’t usually vote.”
Macklin, who took 47 percent of the vote in 1990’s three-way race, didn’t want to predict the outcome, other than to say farmers have a clear choice: “I’ll state where I stand and people can vote for me or against me. I think they respect that.”
