The Canadian Wheat Board is subject for the first time to the access-to-information law under the federal Accountability Act.
Saskatchewan MP David Anderson, a wheat board monopoly opponent and parliamentary secretary to agriculture minister Chuck Strahl, said although the board’s commercial secrets will not be subject to the new rules, its administration will be.
“Farmers will be able to find out what is going on there. They will finally also be able to find out the role of the member for Wascana (former agriculture and wheat board minister Ralph Goodale) in putting farmers in jail in the 1990s.”
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Strahl said the move is a good idea.
“The administrative costs of the CWB now amount to almost $70 million annually and farmers should have a way of scrutinizing those costs.”
The CWB and the opposition Liberals fought to keep the board outside the scope of the government’s Accountability Act.
The Liberals argued that being subject to access-to-information requests would tie up wheat board resources as employees search for requested information and that it would subject the board to requests for internal information that could be useful to competitors.
The wheat board last week played the international card to defend itself against Conservative government intentions to end the CWB export sales monopoly and to fire board president Adrian Measner.
Critics said it was a desperate attempt by the board to use buyers who benefit from CWB sales to try to bolster its domestic position.
CWB director Allen Oberg and Measner appeared at a Senate agriculture committee meeting Dec. 12 to present international buyer opinion that without Measner and a single desk seller, they will consider buying elsewhere. Letters from foreign buyers also were posted on the CWB website.
“As a farmer, it deeply disturbs me that long-standing customers both from the point of view of the quantities they buy and the premiums they are willing to pay are about to start looking elsewhere for their grain because this government is playing politics with my grain marketing agency,” Oberg told senators.
Mexican importer Grupo Altex president Roberto Servitje wrote that Measner had been key in making Mexico a major importer, saying, “we cannot believe Ottawa is putting all of this at risk.”
Chinese buyer Yang Hong, general manager of the wheat division of the Chinese importer COFCO, said he hoped Measner would keep his job.
“Kindly please convey our best wishes for Mr. Adrian Measner and his family.”
The CWB, by posting skeptical importer letters on its website, is trying to “spread unnecessary fear and worry concerning Canada’s intention to provide western Canadian farmers with a choice on how they market their wheat and barley,” said Strahl.
Canadian grain will be available to world markets whatever the marketing system despite “doomsday” predictions from some.
When MPs were asked to stand and be counted Dec. 12 on an opposition motion to instruct the government on the wheat board plebiscite question, Inky Mark was the sole government member who joined the opposition majority.
The non-binding vote went against the government 165 -121 as Liberals, New Democrats, Bloc Québecois and Mark combined.
“My constituents overwhelmingly support the view that farmers should decide what the future of the board should be, not the government,” the veteran MP said. Mark said 79 percent of farmers in his riding support the CWB monopoly.
Mark said there had been no repercussions inside the Conservative caucus for his contrary vote. It was not an issue of confidence in the government that could have led to its defeat.
The House of Commons agriculture committee said one of the government’s controversial anti-monopoly appointees to the board of directors of the wheat board is unqualified for the job.
A report tabled in the Commons Dec. 13 said former Saskatchewan Wheat Pool executive Bruce Johnson was not suitable. The committee vote to reject him came after two of Strahl’s appointees, Johnson from Saskatchewan and Ken Motiuk from Alberta, were verbally mauled by opposition critics during a raucous Parliament Hill hearing the previous week.
Johnson was asked why he was fired from Sask Pool in 1999 and why an organic food company he was managing went into receivership in 2002.
Johnson said he was fired from the pool “without cause. It was not for poor performance.” And FarmGro Organic Foods Inc. was “an insolvent organization that I was asked to try and turn around.”
Meanwhile Motiuk was accused by committee member NDP Alex Atamanenko of being hostile to the whole idea of the wheat board.
Motiuk said it was just a reflection of his belief in the marketing choice issue.
“I perhaps came across as hostile,” he said. “It is just that I feel very passionate about this issue. I apologize if I may appear to have a hostile attitude. It is more my passion coming out and I’ll try to smile.”
