The federal Liberal Opposition has put forward a private member’s bill it hopes will hem in the government’s plans to deregulate Prairie barley marketing.
The bill, announced Thursday by Manitoba Liberal MP Ray Simard, proposes to put authority over changes to the Canadian Wheat Board Act in the hands of the CWB’s board of directors.
“Our basic point is simple,” said Opposition House Leader Ralph Goodale, a Saskatchewan MP and former minister for the CWB. “It doesn’t matter what politicians or bureaucrats think about grain marketing. What matters is what farmers think.”
Read Also
Alberta Crop Report: Rains in the south, dryness in the north
Rain fell onto the southern half of Alberta last week, while hot and dry conditions persisted in the northern half, according to the province’s crop report released on July 18.
Simard’s bill would legislate a “duty to consult” the CWB’s board of directors before a government uses its powers with an eye to making changes at the CWB. It would also reduce the number of government appointees on the 15-member board of directors from five to three, leaving the 10 directors elected by farmers to name the remaining two.
(Of the five appointed directors now sitting on the board, the Conservative government appointed four, including interim CEO Greg Arason after the Tories fired his predecessor, Adrian Measner.)
The Liberals said the bill also reiterates section 47.1 of the CWB Act, stressing that the CWB’s marketing mandate can’t be changed without legislation enacted by Parliament, nor without consulting the CWB, nor without a “legitimate vote” among eligible Prairie wheat and barley growers.
“Abstract survey”
Simard also proposes in his bill that the board’s directors approve any CWB-related legislation in advance. A producer vote, he added, “must involve a clear, democratic, secret ballot on a specific question — not an abstract multiple-choice survey about marketing philosophies.”
The Liberals’ move follows a Tuesday meeting called by Conservative Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz between pro-deregulation farmer and ag industry groups and CWB officials on ways to introduce what the government calls “marketing choice.”
The government aims to scrap the CWB’s single marketing desk for Prairie barley and was blocked by the Federal Court in its bid to do so through regulation rather than legislation. The court will hear the government’s appeal of that ruling next month.
CashPlus, the CWB’s proposal for a cash price option for Prairie barley, met with disapproval from Ritz and pro-deregulation groups before its release and led to the Tuesday meeting.
Ritz recently also announced plans to bring “marketing choice” legislation to the House of Commons, but support from any of the three federal opposition parties appears unlikely at best.
“The Harper government has already introduced new legislation to cripple the Canadian Grain Commission and it’s about to do the same to the wheat board, without the consultation or the clear producer-vote the existing law requires,” Liberal ag critic Wayne Easter said in the party’s release.
