Hill is chair of the Canadian Wheat Board board of directors.
Rolf Penner argues the Liberal party could rebuild support in the West by changing its policy of enabling grain producers to determine how their wheat and barley will be sold (Liberals should alter CWB stand, March 26).
This is a strange argument coming from Mr. Penner, who actually ran in the last Canadian Wheat Board director elections. Presumably, he believes that the CWB elections are a legitimate exercise in democracy and that they provide farmers an opportunity to set the future direction for the organization that markets grain on their behalf.
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It seems odd that someone who ran with as much passion and commitment as Mr. Penner would now call upon federal politicians to ignore the results of these elections and unilaterally eliminate the CWB’s single desk powers.
Farmers believe that it is we, not politicians of any stripe, who should decide the future of our grain marketing system.
Regardless of what Mr. Penner would have readers believe, the CWB generated a record $7.2 billion in returns for western Canadian grain producers in the 2007-08 crop year, up over $2 billion from the previous year. The orderly approach to marketing that we have on this side of the border actually enabled us to make considerably more money than our American counterparts – around $1 per bushel more.
I note that Mr. Penner has chosen to ignore the fact that wheat and barley are not the only agricultural commodities sold by single-desk marketers in Canada.
So are wheat and maple syrup in Quebec, root crops in Manitoba, not to mention milk, eggs and chickens right across the country.
