THE Conservative government wants to change Canada’s grain marketing system by ending the Canadian Wheat Board’s monopoly.
But the eight-person task force the government has established to address that change is not the forum to lead the discussion and the board should not be condemned for deciding not to participate.
While members of the committee may be thoughtful individuals with expertise in their fields, their range is narrow and most come at the topic with the same philosophical view as the government.
The four-week reporting deadline is inadequate to draft a coherent plan for wheat board operations in an open market, let alone consider the impact. The board plays many roles within the grain marketing and handling system and if it is changed fundamentally, the entire system will have to adjust.
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But the biggest problem with the task force is that it supports a course of action that the government appears ready to implement without a farmer vote.
Strahl notes that the government “remains committed to providing freedom of marketing choice for farmers,” but no one knows whether the majority of farmers want this choice.
From the beginning, the government’s actions on the board have been predicated on the illusion that the last federal election was a virtual referendum on the future of the board. In reality it was largely a verdict against a tired, scandal-ridden Liberal government.
The Conservatives swept most western agricultural ridings in their march to a minority government win last election, but farmers voted in that contest with the knowledge that the Canadian Wheat Board Act requires a farmer plebiscite to approve significant changes to what the board markets. Most would assume that extends to whether the monopoly continues.
A minority government shines when it takes action on areas where there is consensus, showing its supporters and the unconvinced that it can act for all.
In agriculture, the consensus is that the marketplace provides inadequate income to farmers.
There are lots of ways to address this problem, key among them developing a sustainable farm income support program. Also warranted is a review of whether Canadian farmers have the best marketing tools available to succeed in a changing marketplace, with increased corporate concentration, new competition and new demand from biofuel producers.
Such a review would require the input of farmers, grain marketers, the wheat board, agricultural economists and other experts and would require time for data collection and study. The review should have freedom in its recommendations, including the options of retaining or ending the CWB monopoly depending on the weight of evidence.
Farmers would then have the unbiased information they need to decide for themselves the future of the wheat board.
