SASKATOON – Some of the words may be different, but the message will be unchanged in the final report of the Canada-U.S. Joint Commission on Grains.
That includes the controversial recommendation that links the elimination of U.S. export subsidies to changing the Canadian Wheat Board so it operates more like a commercial grain company.
“The recommendation in that area itself isn’t substantially changed,” said U.S. commissioner Tony Flagg, a flour miller from Oregon.
After three days of meetings here last week, commission members said the recommendations contained in the interim report released in June will re-appear in the final report that is to be handed to the two governments Sept. 12.
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“We’ve certainly revisited the wording, but not with respect to the substance of the recommendations,” said Bill Miner, Canadian co-chair of the commission.
In its recommendation calling for an end to “discretionary pricing,” the commission said the U.S. should eliminate the Export Enhancement Program and the wheat board should be required to operate on a profit/loss basis, much like a private grain company. It also said any such action should depend on comparable steps being taken by other grain exporters, including the European Union.
Many Canadian farm and grain industry groups have objected to any suggestion the wheat board and the EEP are equivalent trade-distorting activities, and demanded the recommendation be changed.
Commission members said they’ve taken those concerns into account, and while the thrust of the recommendation won’t be any different, the final report will be rewritten so that it’s clear the commission is not equating the EEP and the CWB marketing system.
“Clearly there are distinct differences there that we have now tried to highlight, in terms of who supports it, taxpayers versus farmers, the degree of market interference and so on,” said Flagg.
He said the U.S. side hasn’t abandoned its belief that single-desk selling as practised by the wheat board is market-distorting over a long period of time, because of the way the board offers different prices in different markets for the same grains.
“But we’re trying to get away from the idea that we’re saying EEP is the same as CWB pricing,” said Flagg. “That would not be accurate and we’re trying to get that cleared up.”
Miner said there was never any doubt in the minds of the commissioners that the EEP is a subsidy system and the board is not. But as to whether the board is market-distorting over a long period of time, “there would be less agreement among the 10 of us.”
Marketing systems compared
The commission will have one more meeting, likely in the first week of September in the Washington, D.C. area, in order to review the final version of the report. Besides the recommendations, it will include more extensive background information, a side-by-side comparison of the two countries’ marketing systems and the submissions made by farm and grain industry groups.
Earlier, some members had raised the possibility that the Canadian and American members of the panel might make some separate recommendations on some highly sensitive domestic political issues.
But Miner appeared to rule that out by saying the final report will represent a consensus among the panel members.
