Measner is the former president and chief executive officer of the Canadian Wheat Board. The following are excerpts from the letter he wrote to federal agriculture minister Chuck Strahl shortly before Strahl fired Measner on Dec. 19.
This letter is in response to your Nov. 29, 2006, letter to me where you indicated you were contemplating my termination and invited me to provide comments.
I appreciate this opportunity but realize that I am not likely going to provide you with what you want to hear.
While your staff made public comments that suggest I may “save” my job if I support your party’s policy, it is not possible for me to do so.
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Where we fundamentally disagree is my feeling that farmers alone should decide and determine the direction for the Canadian Wheat Board. …
Having been at the CWB since 1974, I have seen the organization grow and change through an extended period. There is no question that the most significant change – and for that matter the most positive change – I experienced was in 1998 when the organization was turned over to farmers. …
The farmer-controlled board took us in a direction that responded to the concerns farmers were expressing. We moved from an organization with just the single desk option of pooling to one with numerous pricing options including fixed price contracts, basis payment contracts, daily price contracts and early payment options based on 80, 90 or 100 percent of the expected pool return outlook.
In effect, we created more options than existed in the CWB’s old environment and indeed than exist in today’s open market environment for non-CWB grains.
But more than this, we refocused an entire organization around farmers. We restructured and enhanced our farmer contact centre and our field staff, and every department understands clearly the need to provide farmers with excellent service and to treat them with the respect that they deserve as business owners.
In our last employee survey, 91 percent of employees indicated they were committed to the CWB’s vision, mission and values, which are all focused around farmers. The external consultant that conducted the survey indicated the level of support we achieved is never seen in a commercial organization.
Why here at the CWB? It is because we work for farmers….
We have been on a road of massive change but we need to continue to evolve as an organization. As president and CEO, I will be asking staff to focus on providing flexibility to farmers on the delivery side of our operations and further working to address farmer cash flow needs by having payment and quality evaluation take place on the farm.
I will also be looking to ramp up our branding efforts both domestically and internationally to appropriately position western Canadian products not only with processors such as millers and maltsters, but also at the consumer level.
So what has allowed the organization to undertake the pace of change I have just discussed? What has allowed us to move so quickly along the pathway the farmer-elected board of directors has established?
The answer is straightforward. The CWB has a very talented group of employees. That talent, in my mind, is second to none in the Canadian grain industry and is also viewed favourably by companies around the world.
But even more important than the individual talent is their ability to work together as a team to ensure they are succeeding for western Canadian farmers. I cannot express in words the pride I have for the way employees have continued to focus on their day-to-day responsibilities despite the interventions of your government.
Employees are focused because they do not want to let farmers down. However, if the uncertainty created by your government persists, I am very concerned with whether the CWB can retain the level of expertise it has today. …
Of course, there are hard economic reasons for my support for this organization. In my 32 years, much of it on the marketing side of the business, I have become convinced that the CWB’s single desk system of marketing puts farmers, as a whole, in a much more positive economic situation than if they were competing against each other in a multiple selling environment.
From the single seller’s ability to extract premiums from global customers, to its ability to position prairie wheat, durum and barley as branded products rather than run-of-the-mill commodities, to the leverage it gives farmers over the grain handling and transportation system by negotiating together, to the economies of scale which keep their marketing costs in check, the single desk system is one that provides substantial economic value.
It is important to understand that the international market is dominated by five very large multinational companies who have been very successful for their own shareholders.
It is also important to recognize that western Canadian farmers do not have the subsidies their U.S. and EU counterparts do. They do not have bilateral trade agreements to provide them with advantages over the competition.
They are the furthest from port position (and from their customers) than any of their competitors. They remain very exposed to Canada’s unpredictable climate. The single desk helps correct this imbalance….
I would also like to say that I have been very impressed with the quality of farmer-elected directors that were elected by their peers. They have grown with the organization and have recognized the value of having external directors with expertise and experience from other industries.
The board puts strong emphasis on strategic planning. We regularly undertake contingency planning, look at new ideas and each year develop a five-year plan so that the board of directors and staff know exactly where we are headed. The board of directors also developed the vision for the organization, which we shared with you, which contemplated a new and exciting direction for farmers.
Your staff have made it pretty clear that the decision on whether I will continue on as president and CEO of the CWB was made a long time ago so I have to be honest that I am not writing this letter with the expectation of keeping my job, but I did want you to know my feelings on this critically important issue. The CWB is a very special western Canadian farmer organization and one that should make all Canadians proud.
In closing I want to say how disappointed I am after seven years of farmers running the CWB and of farmers moving past the emotional debate around the CWB, that your government has brought all the emotion and division of farmers that existed prior to 1998 back to the forefront.
I sincerely hope, as you consider my comments, that you will let farmers chart a course that allows them to be successful as businesspeople….
