We invite great guffaws of laughter in suggesting that changes to the Canadian Wheat Board deserve more debate. After all, and as federal agriculture minister Gerry Ritz attests, farmers have been debating the merits and activities of the board for more than 20 years.
Yet the haste with which the Conservative government is proceeding in the passage of Bill C-18, An Act to Reorganize the CWB and to Make Consequential and Related Amendments to Certain Acts, generates unease. Legislation that will fundamentally change western Canadian grain marketing surely deserves the full benefit of critical thought offered through the usual process.
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The government has given itself seven weeks of parliamentary time to enact this legislation, which was introduced Oct. 18. Seven weeks to get a complex bill through all phases including the Senate has rarely, if ever, been seen in the Canadian parliamentary process, with the exception of emergency bills such as back to work legislation.
Two of those weeks are already gone and the government has committed itself to an aggressive push that has limited debate and raised accusations about abandonment of democratic process.
The Conservatives have been clear in their intentions to eliminate the wheat board monopoly. A majority government now makes the intentions possible. Those who suggest farmers were somehow blindsided by the bill’s introduction have little credibility. To use the metaphor recently favoured by Ritz – that train left the station the day after the election and is barreling down the tracks.
Likewise, legal challenges that suggest the current majority government cannot change legislation enacted by a previous government hold no water. Canadians elect new governments precisely so that they can change existing legislation.
Given those points, the Conservatives have apparently decided that reasonable debate is moot.
If that is the case, it’s something of an insult to the parliamentary process, which, in a perfect world, thoroughly examines proposed bills and raises issues that might require alteration to better serve the public good.
Stephen Vandervalk, president of Grain Growers of Canada, which supports the bill, called last week for “calm in a rising storm of rhetoric.”
Though that is another train that has already left the station, it does raise a warning that in heat of battle, supporters of the CWB monopoly may ascribe qualities to the board that it in fact has never had, such as protection of grain quality (managed by the Canadian Grain Commission) and the use of producer cars.
Any debate about the CWB has always contained rhetoric aplenty and that will never be truer than in the next five weeks.
Given the Conservatives’ full-speed-ahead plan, it may seem futile to complain about the lack of the usual parliamentary process, but there are other areas where the roughshod approach is unworthy.
Two cases in point: the decision to send the bill to a special committee rather than the agriculture committee, to expedite passage; and a plan to displace the current CWB board of directors once the bill is passed and replace them with a slate of appointees.
Most of the board members are farmers elected by farmers. They know the workings of the CWB better than anyone and they have expertise and farmer input that it seems foolish to squander.
Yes, we can hear the whistle of the oncoming train and the government says that train has no reverse gear. Or brakes.
It is already too late to recommend a more reasoned and less hasty approach to changes until the costs are better known and effects are better understood.
When the train chugs into the station, its passengers will include a new era in western Canadian grain marketing and a bedraggled parliamentary process.
Bruce Dyck, Terry Fries, Barb Glen, D’Arce McMillan and Joanne Paulson collaborate in the writing of Western Producer editorials.
