Bill introduced to let farmers market wheat, barley on open market

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This article was published 18/10/2011 (5486 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Western Canadian farmers will be able to market their wheat and barley on the open market as of Aug. 1 next year, if a bill introduced today in the House of Commons becomes law.

The Winnipeg-based Canadian Wheat Board will lose its monopoly to market these grains for export and domestic human consumption at that time. The federal government will effectively own the wheat board during a transition period that could take as long as five years, a senior official told a media briefing this morning.

If no viable business plan is formed to turn the board into a voluntary grain pooling agency or a private grain business within five years, its operations will be wound down, the official said. He said it is also possible that the agency could be sold to a private company.

Meanwhile, Ottawa will not wait until Aug. 1 to wrest control of the wheat board from its mainly farmer-elected board of directors, which has fought to retain the CWB monopoly.

Once Bill C-18 is given royal assent, which could occur by late this year, control over the wheat board will fall to its five government-appointed directors – or anyone else of Ottawa’s choosing. Ian White, a government appointee, is expected to continue as the wheat board’s president and chief executive officer.

At a news conference at a farm just outside Ottawa this morning, Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz said a new open market will spur the economy, attract investment and create jobs.

“Unlike what some people may claim, the sky will not fall in an open market,” he said. “Instead, the sky will be the limit.”

He said the government plans to pass the legislation by the end of the year.

Asked why the government was not holding a plebiscite of farmers before proceeding with the CWB changes, as the current legislation dictates and which prompted the CWB board to call the government’s action illegal, Ritz offered his standard reply that grain producers spoke by electing Conservatives across the Prairies in the May 2 general election.

Earlier this year, the wheat board sponsored its own plebiscite. It found that most farmers supported retaining the CWB sales monopoly.

Allen Oberg, chairman of the Canadian Wheat Board, condemned the bill. “If this passes, the CWB will cease to be a farmers organization. The CWB will no longer be controlled by farmers or focused on farmers,” he told a conference call with reporters on Tuesday.

Oberg dismissed the government’s rhetoric that its legislation was about giving farmers freedom. With the loss of the wheat board sales monopoly, Prairie farmers will lose millions of dollars in annual profits that will now go to the private grain trade, Oberg said.

“This is not about putting farmers in the driver’s seat. It’s about removing us altogether and handing the steering wheel to the huge foreign corporations that control the world’s grain trade.”

Manitoba Agriculture Minister Stan Struthers also condemned the federal bill, calling it “regressive and anti-democratic.”

Struthers said in a statement that Ottawa is planning to take away farmers’ rights by stripping the wheat board of its monopoly.

“The federal government is making a big mistake and it’s the farmers that will have to pay for it,” he said. “This rushed, careless legislation takes a heavy-handed approach which will hurt farmers, their families and the economy as a whole. We won’t just stand by and let them rip the CWB apart.”