Members of the Canadian Wheat Board Alliance said this week they have no intention of abandoning efforts to get a single-desk grain marketing system reinstated in Western Canada.
The pro-wheat board group will push ahead with efforts to develop a single-desk replacement for the Canadian Wheat Board.
Andrew Dennis, a Manitoba farmer and CWBA spokesperson, said he and other single-desk supporters are undeterred, despite recent media reports suggesting that Ottawa has no intention of re-opening the single-desk marketing debate.
Dennis said a delegation of CWBA members travelled to Ottawa in March to discuss grain marketing issues with various MPs, including Liberal cabinet members Ralph Goodale and Marc Garneau.
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He said the delegates got a good reception on Parliament Hill and left with the impression that the door was not closed on reviving some type of single desk entity.
“The information that we got from them was not that we couldn’t put (something like that) in place,” Dennis said.
“A single desk with some regulation was not off the table.”
Dennis said Garneau, Goodale and other MPs encouraged the CWBA to gather additional information, demonstrating how the loss of single desk marketing has financially impacted western Canadian grain farmers .
Despite what Dennis described as positive outcome in Ottawa, the CWBA’s position seems to be at odds with the political reality on Parliament Hill.
According to recent media reports, Goodale has indicated that international trade rules prohibit Canada from establishing new state-trading enterprises like the CWB.
“Under those rules, you cannot create a new one and you can’t recreate the one you got rid of,” Goodale was quoted in the Regina Leader Post.
Scott Bardsley, press secretary for Goodale, said that under international trade rules that Canada currently abides by, there is no chance that the Canadian Wheat Board or any other single-desk entity could be re-created.
“As far as I know it’s not something that’s possible to recreate and indeed no party ran on recreating it in the last (election) campaign either,” he said.
Dennis said work is continuing on a class action lawsuit related to Ottawa’s handling of the Canadian Wheat Board.
The suit, if it goes to a hearing, will seek compensation related to the liquidation of CWB assets, which were purchased with revenue derived from CWB programs.
It will also seek compensation related to the settlement of CWB pool accounts, primarily during the 2011-12 crop year.
