THE standing committee on agriculture has released a recommendation it
believes will help settle a contentious debate in the grain sector:
what to do about the Canadian Wheat Board.
In its report released last week, the committee offered its solution:
“whereas additional on-farm activities and local value-added processing
are an excellent way to give farmers more influence in pricing, the
Committee recommends that the board of directors of the Canadian Wheat
Board authorize, on a trial basis, a free market for the sale of wheat
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and barley, and that it report to this Committee on the subject.”
Rather than settling the CWB debate, this recommendation will inflame
it and divide farmers.
As anti-CWB farm organizations and Canadian Alliance leader Stephen
Harper lined up last week to praise the recommendation and insist it be
adopted, wheat board officials raised valid concerns.
The wheat board’s monopoly cannot and should not be tinkered with on a
trial basis.
“Everyone knows that once a farmer’s marketing power is broken, it
cannot be put together, either practically or legally under the terms
and conditions of the free trade agreement,” said wheat board chair Ken
Ritter.
The Western Canadian Wheat Growers Association said it believes a dual
market would “relieve a major trade irritant with the United States.”
That suggests it sees the board as a bargaining chip in upcoming trade
talks.
Why would Canada want to attempt this trial now, when it has much to
lose in trade discussions? Decisions should be made in the best
interests of the majority of western Canadian farmers, regardless of
their ability to irritate our trading neighbours. Has the U.S. ever
changed its policies because Canadian farmers considered them to be
“trade irritants”?
As part of its rationale for the proposal, the committee reported that
grain producers in Ontario and Quebec “enjoy increasing flexibility in
the marketing of their wheat and barley.”
Yet at the same time this report was released, frustrated Ontario
millers demanded the “disastrous” and “dysfunctional” dual market for
soft white wheat be ended and either returned to a monopoly under the
Ontario Wheat Board or left to an open market.
The ag committee travelled to 15 communities and heard 350
presentations, but these politicians do not speak for the farmers.
Nor should they make the decision for those most affected if the CWB
monopoly is opened or lost. Farmers need full details on all the
ramifications of a dual or open market in the current economic and
trade climate.
Nothing short of a vote by all the farmers under the CWB is acceptable
to decide the board’s future.
