Harper Conservatives Intensify
Efforts to Destroy Canadian Wheat Board
Dismantling the Canadian Wheat Board (CWB) has been a priority for the Harper government since it was elected two years ago. The difficulty in accomplishing this goal has been extremely frustrating for Stephen Harper, who first set his sights on the CWB when he was president of the National Citizens Coalition. Over the last couple of months, both Harper and his agriculture minister Gerry Ritz have made it clear that they want the CWB’s single desk eliminated before their minority government falls.
In a baffling news release issued by Ritz’s office on January 17, he ordered the CWB to attend a January 29 meeting with representatives of the malting barley industry, grain elevators and undisclosed “producer groups” to discuss privatizing the North American barley market. The release is baffling in part because the CWB is already meeting regularly with industry representatives about a new plan it has developed which would substantially change the way farmers are paid for their malting barley, without destroying the single desk.
Despite the fact that this CWB plan addresses every operational issue the industry has raised, it continues to steadfastly oppose it. Industry groups went to the extent of issuing three news releases condemning the plan before it had been announced and while they were still in negotiations with the CWB. Ritz’s office also issued an opinion piece dismissing the plan as not going far enough before it was released and then, immediately following its January 9 publication, put out a news release denouncing it.
The reality is that the barley industry companies want to make a profit, and the easiest way for them to make a profit is to buy as cheaply as possible from the farmer and sell their product for as much as possible to buyers. This basic economic reality seems to have escaped the Agriculture Minister, whose office claims that the January 29 meeting is being organized to “serve farmers’ and industry interests,” despite the fact that these interests are diametrically opposed.
Instead of inviting representatives of all 12,000 Prairie malting barley farmers to the meeting, Ritz is expected to invite members of the Western Barley Growers Association (WBGA). The WBGA, according to documents it has filed with the federal court, has 130 paid members. An extreme-right fringe organization, the WBGA is reported to receive funding from the railways, grain companies and maltsters. As such it certainly cannot be called representative of most farmers.
Nevertheless, whatever comes of this January 29 meeting, the Conservative government still has another card up its sleeve. It has been 13 months since it fired Adrian Measner, the CWB’s internationally respected president and CEO. Measner, who had worked for the CWB for over 30 years, was fired for refusing to support the government’s plan to abolish the single desk. The Conservatives have stacked the CEO selection committee with their own political appointees and have taken the unprecedented step of having a staff person from the Prime Minister’s Office on the official selection committee. They are rumoured to have chosen a new President and CEO from Australia, one who has experience dismantling the single marketing desk that Australian cotton producers had built up over decades.
Whatever else the government may be planning, though, it has been apparent that farmers are not as ready to give up the CWB as the Conservatives had hoped. The next six months will be critical for the organization. In order for it to survive, the farmers on the board of directors and farmers across the Prairies will have to take a stand in defence of the single desk.