Ham-fisted barley policy backfires

By Allan Dawson
Winnipeg Free Press
January 27 2008

THE Conservative minority government was elected two years ago and seems no closer to implementing an open market for barley than the day it came to power.

It’s not that it hasn’t really, really tried. It rigged the plebiscite on the barley marketing by giving farmers three choices instead of two and then combining results.

It fired the Canadian Wheat Board’s chief executive officer, fired a CWB director, enticed another to leave and then appointed replacements to do the government’s bidding. Still, the government’s directors lacked the votes to overturn the will of the farmer-elected directors, of which eight out of 10 oppose an open market.

The government even went so far as to contravene the Canadian Wheat Board Act by attempting to impose an open market through cabinet order, which was overturned in court. (An appeal of that decision will be heard Feb. 26.)

So it’s not like the Conservatives haven’t been dogged. The government’s latest attempt to end the CWB’s single desk marketing authority for western barley, excluding domestic feed, is the meeting Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz has called for Tuesday in Ottawa. The minister, CWB, malting industry grain companies and farmers (no doubt just those in support of an open market) will sit in the same room together for the first time since the government began the process to change the CWB’s mandate. That speaks volumes and lies at the heart of the impasse. Instead of consulting the CWB and a wide cross-section of farmers, the government decreed the CWB’s mandate will change, instead of asking should it change? Quite simply, the government refused to follow due process and that has been its undoing, not unlike others laid low by hubris and arrogance since time immemorial. Had it played by the rules, an open market might have been in place by now, or it would’ve been clear that’s not the policy the majority of farmers support.

The government can change the CWB’s mandate by amending the CWB Act. At present, however, the act stipulates the change must be first endorsed by a majority of farmers through a plebiscite. Had a majority of farmers voted for an open market based on a fair question, it’s quite likely opposition parties would have endorsed amendments to the act. That’s unlikely now given all the government’s Machiavellian moves.

The latest in this saga shows the deep disconnect between practicality and posturing, business and rhetoric. Even before all the details were worked out, the Malting Industry of Canada and Western Grain Elevator Association tried to cut the CWB’s new CashPlus program for malting barley off at the knees.

According to the CWB, it would give farmers pricing flexibility, but perhaps more importantly, allow maltsters to contract for malting barley, assuring supplies at known prices. CashPlus is intended to avoid the problems maltsters had last fall getting barley when farmers were delivering to the open domestic feed market where prices were rising. The CWB also says CashPlus would work during a transition to an open market.

The maltsters, grain companies and anti-CWB farm groups say nothing short of an open market will suffice. Ritz agrees. The problem is the CWB can no more implement an open market than the government. The CWB has a lot of administrative flexibility, but a unilateral move to an open market would see it taken to court just as the government was.

So why are these people asking for something they can’t get, at least not right now, instead of focusing on what will work in the interim?

Open market advocates are playing a game of chicken they can’t win, because the CWB doesn’t have the authority to veer off its single-desk path.

Maltsters appear prepared to suffer market uncertainty and even economic loss, at least temporarily, to keep the pressure on for an open market that they contend will provide long-term benefits.

If farmers like the CashPlus program, it could weaken momentum towards an open market. But it won’t deter the government or its core farm supporters. Meantime, all concerned should get on with the business of selling and buying malting barley until the CWB Act is amended and an open market is implemented.

From the start, Ritz and his government have blamed the wheat board. He and his supporters need to look in the mirror. The government’s ham-fisted, bully-boy tactics have backfired.

Allan Dawson is a reporter with the Manitoba Co-operator.