By Alex Binkley
True North Perspective
Originally written for Ontario Farmer
Readers may have seen news reports that Liberal Leader Michael Ignatief wants to woo the west where the Liberals enjoy about as much traction as a bald tire on ice. He might as well expand that ambition to include all of rural Canada.
Assuming he’s serious, here’s an opening he could consider. Go along with the government’s plan to let barley growers sell outside the Canadian Wheat Board (CWB). Even the Board’s polls show a majority of farmers want that option.
Now the fate of the CWB isn’t the biggest issue in Western Canada but it’s a very symbolic one that moving on would show westerners he’s listening to them. As well, the votes his party hopes to capture from supporting a monopoly CWB go to the NDP anyway.
So what does Ignatief gain for letting the Tories off the hook on their promise to change barley marketing? How about a commission to look into turning the Board into some sort of voluntary cooperative that could serve as the export marketer for any Canadian farmed product, maybe even aquaculture. Whatever proposal emanates from the examination would be voted on in Parliament. It wouldn’t be much different than the progress reports he insisted on in return for backing the budget.
While not all the information on the proposed son of the CWB is there, he can get some idea of what’s involved from a 2006 report by a special task force to Chuck Strahl when he was agriculture minister. There were good ideas in that report but they didn’t provide the instant relief that the micro minds in the prime minister’s office wanted. An academic guy like him can read all the way to the last page of the report and grasp the concept being advanced.
Politically it wouldn’t be a tough sell. Son of CWB would retain a big chunk of the Prairie wheat business to give it a solid base. It could have the power to strike deals with private companies with export terminals to handle any products. The important matter is, you let the commodity organizations or groups of farmers across the country decide whether to use its services.
The commodity groups would back such a move while the groups aligned with the Canadian Federation of Agriculture would likely be okay if the Board isn’t destroyed. The NFU will oppose him but they will anyway. Alberta and Saskatchewan won’t attack the move and if it isn’t going to lose the high paying jobs associated with the Canadian Wheat Board, then the Manitoba government will squawk but live with it. Most importantly, it will show a lot of westerners that he listens to them, which they don’t think Liberals do.
20 February 2009
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