Harper Government Attacks Farmer Control of Canadian Wheat Board

What do you do when you can’t win? Change the rules of the game.

Privatizing the Canadian Wheat Board (CWB) and abolishing farmers’ collective marketing power has been a goal of the Harper government since it was elected in January 2006. To date, they have not been successful, losing three consecutive court battles. Without a majority, they are unable to legislate an end to single-desk marketing, and every back door method they have tried up to this point has failed. Increasingly frustrated, Harper vowed in June to “walk all over” anyone who stood in his government’s way.

On August 1, late in the day before the start of a long weekend, the government tabled a regulatory change which, if enacted, will remove the third-party spending limit in the CWB director elections.

Ten of the 15 members of the CWB’s board of directors are elected from districts across Western Canada, with elections held every two years in five districts. The other five directors, including the President and CEO, are appointed by the federal government. Eight of the elected directors currently support single-desk marketing, with two elected directors and four of the government’s appointees opposed. Elections will be held this fall, and the Conservatives are determined to get candidates who oppose single-desk marketing elected in at least two of the five districts, which would change the balance on the board of directors.

Since February, Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz has been calling on farmers to vote for open market supporters in the elections. The Conservative Party machine in rural Western Canada has already been doing work in advance of the elections, including polling and direct mail pieces. But once the election period officially begins in September, spending limits of $15,000 per candidate and $10,000 per registered third party take effect. The Conservatives are clearly nervous that without significant spending, they won’t be able to win two of the races. If they can remove the third-party spending limit, though, any party that registers can participate in the director elections and spend as much money as they want supporting or opposing candidates. Under the existing election rules, these third parties wouldn’t need to disclose their spending until two months after the elections are over.

The aim here is obvious – unleash a massive barrage of slick anti-CWB propaganda, paid for by the big financial interests who would best be served by the CWB’s demise. This would include grain companies like Cargill and Viterra, the railways, agribusiness monopolies like Monsanto and BASF, and the Conservative Party itself. The Conservatives are rumoured to have a chunk of money set aside for this purpose – up to $2 million, according to some reports.

Public comment on the Conservatives’ regulatory change is allowed until September 2, after which it is widely expected that the Conservatives will simply enact the change. There is some hope that the move will backfire on them and farmers will resent the interference in their elections. However, the ability of third parties to hide their spending until after the election is complete and to register as innocuous sounding groups means that farmers may have no idea who has produced the propaganda they are receiving during director elections.

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