One quote from last week’s newspaper definitely deserves repeating. It was from a Saskatchewan farmer, reflecting on the 1995 end of the Crow Benefit transportation subsidy:
“Farmers lose. Communities lose. I guess the one benefit I got out of it was to realize I can’t trust or depend on government. That’s a good lesson.”
There’s a lot of truth in that. While farmers, like other citizens, must depend on governments for such essentials as disaster relief and a health-care system, the less dependence the better.
For an example, just look at the current Senate consideration of the bill that would make dramatic changes in the Canadian Wheat Board.
Read Also
Agriculture needs to prepare for government spending cuts
As government makes necessary cuts to spending, what can be reduced or restructured in the budgets for agriculture?
A body of unelected legislators, each appointed on some prime minister’s personal prerogative, may play a significant role influencing the future of many thousands of farm families.
Like the elected MPs who considered the bill before them, the Senators are overwhelmingly from outside the wheat board area. Only a small fraction are or have been farmers.
The bill itself has been criticized by virtually every farm organization. Everyone seems to object, although on different grounds, to the procedure for adding or deleting crops to be marketed by the new board. Many object to provisions to build up a contingency fund through deductions from farmers’ receipts. Many object to having the federal government appoint the board’s CEO and five directors. The list of criticisms can go on for some time.
The bill is indeed badly flawed, and there is something distasteful at seeing farmers having to go cap in hand before politicians, elected or unelected, to plead for changes.
Ironically, that situation is perhaps the best justification for the proposed new legislation.
Because the one thing the bill will achieve, in a clumsy and at times half-hearted fashion, is to transfer some power from politicians to farmers.
The bill would enable farmers, for the first time, to elect most of the board’s directors. No longer would the board’s leadership depend solely on one cabinet minister. Farmers, not a minister, could decide whether crops are added or excluded. And farmers, through the directors, could influence what contingency funds are created.
Whatever other faults it has, the bill would at least enable western farmers to make many decisions about the board without having to make pleas to Ottawa politicians.
If the venerable Senators can persuade the government to improve the bill, fine. But in any case let’s get it passed and get on to new business.
