Should the Canadian Wheat Board proceed now with its pursuit of CP Rail?
Or should it wait until after the board elections are over and let the new board of directors make the decision?
Those are questions the Western Canadian Wheat Growers Association has tried to raise during the wheat board elections.
But while at least one candidate outside the wheat growers has also raised the matter, it does not appear to have become a major issue in the campaign.
Bill Rosher, a Smiley, Sask., farmer candidate for District 4, told a candidates’ forum in Rosetown that he thinks the board should not go ahead with any action against CP until the elections are over.
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“It’s time farmers started taking over,” said Rosher, who supports the board’s single-desk powers. Going after CP isn’t wrong, he said, but farmers should make the decisions.
“They’re a lame duck administration right now,” he said.
Wheat grower president Larry Maguire is saying a lawsuit against CP would be a “risky, expensive and lengthy process.”
The new board of directors, containing farmers, could give the issue a fresh look, he said.
“After reviewing the evidence they may decide to proceed, or they could decide it’s time to turn the page and move on.”
But some other candidates and farmers don’t agree.
“They should see if they can get some money for farmers,” said Riceton, Sask., farmer Don Schmeling, who is a candidate for District 8. “The wheels of justice grind slowly, so they might as well keep them going.”
Schmeling said he agrees with many of the opinions of the wheat growers, but on this he thinks the wheat board is right.
“I don’t see why they shouldn’t (proceed),” he said.
Fellow District 8 candidate Terry Hanson disagrees with the call to delay the pursuit for compensation.
“I think it’s a ridiculous idea,” said Hanson, a member of the wheat board’s advisory committee.
He said most farmers he has talked to are glad the board made the railways accountable. And he doesn’t trust the wheat growers’ association motives.
“It’s ludicrous the wheat growers are supporting the railways rather than farmers,” he said.
Keystone Agricultural Producers president Don Dewar said his group, a Manitoba farm lobby, thinks the elections have nothing to do with the board’s pursuit of compensation.
“We see absolutely no reason why the wheat board should hold back,” Dewar said.
The Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities also wants the board to forge ahead with its action against CP Rail. It says farmers want to see CP pay for the discrimination it showed against prairie farmers in 1996-97.
Spokesperson Deanna Allen said the wheat board told farmers it would get compensation, and it is sticking to its word.
“We’re going forward, as promised,” Allen said.
