Allen Oberg, a farmer from Forestburg, Alta., and chair of the Canadian Wheat Board’s board of directors, says farmers deserve a vote on the board’s monopoly
The Canadian Wheat Board is the farmers’ marketing organization. As farmers, it exists for us. We control the organization through an elected board of directors. We pay all its costs. It should go without saying that we should decide its future.
Nevertheless, some say there is no need for a farmer plebiscite on the future of grain marketing because the federal election gave the government a mandate on this issue ( “Power of the people not part of CWB Act,” June 23 by John De Pape.)
Read Also
Proactive approach best bet with looming catastrophes
The Pan-Canadian Action Plan on African swine fever has been developed to avoid the worst case scenario — a total loss ofmarket access.
I dispute that the federal election constitutes a referendum on the CWB. Over the past several weeks I’ve heard from plenty of farmers who voted Conservative and are surprised the government of Canada could make changes to the CWB without a vote.
Farmers went to the polls with any number of issues in mind: taxes, the economy, crime, the gun registry, health care, education, the deficit, gas prices, foreign affairs, support for the military.
I can understand why these farmers expected a plebiscite – because the same Conservative government held a plebiscite in 2007. That plebiscite was flawed, with a skewed question that one leading pollster described as devious.
But the Conservative government and Mr. De Pape still felt there was a need to hold it. They seem now to have changed their minds.
Yet what’s different? In 2006, the Conservative party also won every rural seat in the CWB’s designated area. The only thing that has changed is the Conservative party won a lot more seats in Ontario, giving it a majority.
It makes me wonder if it is afraid of what the results would be, especially on wheat, the single biggest crop grown in Western Canada today.
Farmers may differ on their views about the value of the single desk, but it’s clear that they believe farmers should have the final word on what happens to the CWB.
In our 2010 Producer Survey, three out of four farmers said the government does not have the right to eliminate the CWB’s single desk without farmer consent.
That’s why it was gratifying to hear the premier of Manitoba stand up for the rights of prairie farmers and demand that farmers decide this question.
We are encouraging everyone to sign the province’s online petition at Manitoba.ca. The CWB also has its own petition posted online at cwb.ca, which can be downloaded and circulated.
As a farmer, I believe the future of the CWB is crucial to the business of farming. It affects the competitiveness of prairie wheat and barley in markets around the world. And it’s essential to the spirit of democracy: the current Canadian Wheat Board Act states that farmers should decide.
The CWB is a democratic organization run by farmers for farmers. The CWB sells farmers’ grain to 70 countries around the world, and returns all proceeds, minus operating costs, to farmers. Not one dollar of taxpayer money goes into this organization. Prairie grain farmers fund its operations. It’s our money. Let us decide its future.
I want to be clear: the point is not about retaining the CWB’s single desk. This isn’t about keeping jobs in Winnipeg nor the imminent threat to the Port of Churchill, which is utterly dependent on wheat exports.
This is about respecting farmers’ basic democratic rights. These are the same rights Ontario farmers exercised when they decided, through their elected representatives on the Ontario Wheat Producers Marketing Board, to end their wheat marketing monopoly.
And producers in Quebec have consistently chosen to maintain their single-desk wheat marketing board. Why should prairie farmers be denied that same vote?
———
section=opinion, news, none
