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Standing Committee Threatens Canadian Wheat Board

On June 11, the House of Commons Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food released a report entitled The Future Role of Government in Agriculture. The report contains 33 recommendations, most of which are extremely general in nature. However, recommendation 14 calls on the Canadian Wheat Board to establish a dual market on a "trial basis", effectively ending its 67 year monopoly.

The Standing Committee is comprised of representatives from every political party, with Liberal MPs in the majority. Only one NDP member of the committee refused to endorse recommendation 14. All other recommendations were passed with unanimous consent. Under parliamentary procedure, the government now has 150 days to respond to the report's recommendations. Ralph Goodale, the minister responsible for the Wheat Board, has said he will be seriously considering the recommendation.

The Canadian Wheat Board was created by an act of Parliament in 1935 to respond to the growing devastation faced by grain farmers on the prairies. The Board is the only agency which markets wheat and barley on behalf of western Canadian farmers. All sales revenues, less the costs for marketing, are returned directly to farmers. Study after study has found that farmers receive higher prices for their wheat and barley by selling it through the Wheat Board than they would on the open market. However, the Board's monopoly prevents the large American grain conglomerates from making significant profits from the sale of western Canadian grains. In the last ten years, the United States has challenged the Wheat Board monopoly as an unfair trading practice nine times, both at the WTO and under NAFTA. Each challenge has been dismissed.

Introducing a dual market on a "trial basis" is sophistry - under Chapter 11 of NAFTA, once the Wheat Board's monopoly is broken, it cannot be re-established without paying hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation fines to the grain conglomerates for loss of future profits.

The Standing Committee's recommendation is an attack on an important national institution, in keeping with the record of the Chretien Liberals since coming to power in 1993.