The Canadian Wheat Board flew six directors and two staff members to Ontario for several days last week to raise the board’s profile and it was worth the cost, a CWB official said.
“We’re very satisfied with the things we have been able to do in the past two days,” CWB communications officer Justin Kohlman said April 4. “We think we got our message out.”
The “message” was that the wheat board now has a majority-elected board representing farmers and should be taken seriously as a farmer organization. The board also stressed that national media and politicians who think the farm income crisis is over-blown are wrong.
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Members of the group met staff at major daily newspapers in Ottawa and Toronto. On Parliament Hill, they testified before House of Commons and Senate agriculture committees and hosted a reception that attracted scores of politicians, lobbyists and bureaucrats.
Kohlman said one of the key reasons for the trip was to counter opinions, published or broadcast in some key media, that the farm income crisis is not as bad as farm leaders are saying, that Canadian farmers are over-subsidized and that the country and farmers would be better off with fewer or no subsidies.
