A STRONG argument can be made that the political controversy over the Canadian Wheat Board monopoly sucks a disproportionate amount of oxygen out of the farm policy debate in Western Canada.
With issues of animal disease, income worries, high costs, poorly functioning farm programs and closed markets at the core of farm sector troubles, the CWB debate often seems to overshadow all else.
Partisans on both sides of the issue undoubtedly will disagree and they make a good point that the issues involved in the CWB dispute go to the core of democracy and farmer power.
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Can the majority who support the CWB single desk force the minority who do not to forego their right to sell their own production?
Should the Conservative government ignore repeated CWB election results that favour directors who support the monopoly and if it can, does that not fly in the face of majority opinion?
If Conservatives succeed in ending the 56-year-old monopoly, does this undermine farmers’ right to act collectively to gain market power? If they fail, does it undermine the ability of business operators to manage their own affairs?
Who qualifies to be a farmer when making these fundamental decisions?
These are all fascinating and important questions that are properly being played out through political discourse and occasionally the courts.
But back to the original point: given that most prairie farmers make most of their income from non-board grains and navigate the markets that CWB defenders insist the board do for them, the attention spent on the CWB issue seems disproportionate to the economic impact of board grain sales in the prairie farm economy.
Yet those who care about this issue care a lot. The term “obsession” comes to mind.
Consider last week’s House of Commons agriculture committee meeting that featured Canadian Federation of Agriculture president Laurent Pellerin’s first visit to Parliament Hill as leader of the group.
There were lots of issues to raise.
He is a pork producer and the hog industry is being hammered by low prices, high costs, fear of H1N1 influenza and growing protectionism.
Livestock producers are under siege, farm debt is at a record high, protectionism is growing, serious doubts are being raised about farm succession, an aging farm population and the adequacy of farm programs.
So what did Conservative MPs use their time to talk about?
They devoted their entire time to the CWB monopoly and why the CFA has the board as a member when it divides farmers.
It is a pattern with this government, this agriculture minister and his supportive MPs, to never miss an opportunity to slag the CWB, to try to marginalize it, to try to demonize it.
Political opponents never miss an opportunity to portray this as a struggle of democracy and farmer power against undemocratic political thugs. In the last Parliament, then-minister Chuck Strahl was even described as a fascist.
It is an issue but those obsessed with it make it more pivotal than do many farmers trying to make a living in a tough market with the tools they have.
Low CWB election turnouts would suggest most farmers think there are bigger agricultural issues to obsess about.
