CWB DILEMMA.

[parsley]

StrawBoss, you said you "don’t want to ask any CWB people for an export license but market my grain the way I choose", and I really support that notion, but this Government and the Wheat Board won't give up licensing Prairie wheat without a battle.

This isn't about mean-mouthing the Board. This is about expecting Prairie folks to to be treated fairly and decently. And according to legislation.

The Chairman of the Ontario Wheat Producers Marketing Board (OWPMB) was a guest on Alberta's Jim Fisher Radio Show last Wednesday and he informed the listeners that the OWPMB had applied to the Federal Government in order to get authority to issue export licenses to Ontario producers, and bypass Wheat Board licensing . This flies in the face of Parliament, who has granted the CWB SOLE legislated authority to issue export licenses. He indicated the OWPMB had already issued a mock-up export license to someone exporting, which certainly sends a finger-message to the CWB Act.

Apparently the grain load with the bogus export license got through to the US destination and Agriculture Canada and Customs Canada were AWARE of the border crossing, but let it through. Doesn't take a lawyer to figure out what happens to Western farmers when they don't wave a CWB export license at border crossings. That load of grain would have been turned back and the exporter charged.

The question any Prairie farmer should ask, StrawBoss, is why did Customs and the CWB and Ag Canada close their eyes to Ontarians crossing the border, exporting wheat without a CWB license and presenting false documents? Why do Customs and the CWB and Ag Canada go out of their way to fine and jail Prairie farmers? Let's take a cold hard look at what is being done to Prairie folks, StrawBoss. Unless we do, we can't fix it.

Parsley

[AdamSmith]

thalpenny,

Would you consider the Ontario wheat marketing system to be "fiction"

Tell that to Ontario farmers.

What you fail to mention is that while there can only be either a single desk system or an open-market system, which only stands to reason, there can, however, be a Canadian Wheat Board and an open market system.

The CWB existed as a marketing agency within an open market system way back when. The single desk is an add-on, it's not the main structure.

Pooling through a central agency is the main structure and it can continue to exist within an open market system.

Ontario proves the point.

[TOM4CWB]

Thalpenny;

Common sense experience Proves you and your communist theory are wrong.

Take one look at feed barley.

When the CWB dumps feed barley last year on the world market at $135.00/t, western Canadian farmers selling feed barley extracted, by your own admission, $180.00/t.

The CWB is the biggest weight on world market prices of grain, because the CWB works for grain handlers railways and multinationals, not for "designated area" wheat and barley producers.

2001/02 Feed Barley, CPS Wheat, 3Red wheat, Winter Wheat, Feed wheat all are proof that when the CWB needs to extract these grains from us, the CWB pays us less than market value, transfering the extra value to the other players in the value chain.

And If we seek to raise the price by going around the monopoly, you throw us in jail.

Thalpenny, "designated area" wheat and barley producers ARE political prisioners, until the CWB starts issueing nocost export licenses.

The direction the CWB Act gives to the CWB is to sell our grain at prices the CWB deems reasonable, and will promote the sale of our grain in interprovincial and international markets.

This in no way assures me that you will get fair market value, just that it gives you license to sell my grain at whatever price is in the national interests of Canada. It is obvious that the national interests of the Canadian economy (value adders and industrial complex combined) are well served by making the lowest price the law, and jailing anyone who would try to get a higher price.

I know you are trying to save the CWB and your own job Thalpenny, I believe your methods are destroying grain farmers in western Canada however, and this is sad when you will sacrifice your neighbours farms for a communist principal that has been proven over and over and over not to work.

Strawboss;

If the CWB became a co-op, with a capital base to back its decisions, then it could work.

THe Co-op hog marketing boards work without a monopoly.

If the CWB does a good job, then it will survive as well.

It seems to me the CWB KNOWS it is doing a substandard job.
The CWB knows any competition will prove this to everyone, just as the feed grains prove lack of CWB performance to us.

So the CWB says there are gone and out of here, if they are forced to compete and live up to all the claims they have made over the past half century.

The CWB theory of "extracting a premium" is a fancy theory to fool farmers in the "designated area" into giving up most of their high quality grain at less than fair market value, much of the time.

The PPO contracting system proved this in July.


Give us a daily monopoly cash price, after we have harvested grain in the current crop year, and we will see how good the single desk really is and what it does for us Thalpenny......

Would you take that challenge Thalpenny?

[StrawBoss]

My reason to vote on deleting all commodities from the CWB control is one way to legally strip the board’s monopoly on marketing Canadian grain.

If they have nothing to sell the CWB would have two choices become a co-operative or shutdown. I think as Tom4CWB suggested the co-operative way would still serve the producers that want to support it.

We wouldn’t have to care how long it takes to restructure, but I am sure things will speed up if all the CWB employees jobs are on the line.

I think if this could be accomplished it would be good for all farmers.

[parsley]

Good Morning StrawBoss,

I hope you've put up a lot of straw because with all the snow and cold weather,farmers will need lots of straw!

Your method will certainly work, StrawBoss. Farmers could vote off every commodity and leave the Board with nothing to market! Good for you for thinking of ways to get marketing choice and for putting it on the table for all Agri-villers to mull over. I have a little problem with the time frame we'd have to endure by going through this route, though, but that is probably because I'm not very patient.

Years of dealing with legislation and politicians, and getting politicians involved to open up the Act goes against any farmer's better judgement.Generally, there is a lack of trust in politicians.

Ideally, we need to get marketing choice in a more timely way, and that is what issuing licenses accomplishes, so that is why I put that one on the discussion-table. If the CWB's Licensing Staff was ordered to give licenses to DA farmers, that would provide us with market choice. Right away. The Board of Directors could make the order. Minister Goodale could make that order.

We both want amd need the same thing StrawBoss...market choice.

Parsley

[StrawBoss]

The CWB should come out of hiding and explain in a newsletter to all producers how they could operate and compete in the open market and they will be there to serve the producers that want to support it.

The CWB could easily add a question to the permit book and make it mandatory to answer by the producers and landlords “ DO YOU WANT TO DELETE ALL COMMODITIES FROM THE CWB CONTROL” Yes____ or No _____.
This would insure that all farmers would vote.

The CWB could also delete all the commodities off their control without a vote and give the producers a choice without a delay.
CWB why is it so wrong to see happy farmers have a choice to market their own products?

[StrawBoss]

First - to Adam Smith - how can you argue that there is single desk selling in Ontario? There isn't anymore. There are multiple sellers of Ontario wheat.

But again I think StrawBoss has this figured out. The debate is about having an open market versus having single desk selling. If there ever is a producer vote, I'll be curious to see if the open market proponents would accept the democratic wishes of their neighbors, or if it would be like the Quebec separtisits and just keep going on and on and on.

Parsley's issue of wanting a no cost export license is a shell for what the true desire is - an open market. The reason things are couched that way is because to call for an open market doesn't sell politically, so then there is the call for the dual market, or no cost export licenses, to avoid having the debate about the merits of the single desk selling.

Regarding a daily cash price from the monopoly as tom4cwb suggests - the issue I see he is seeking is price transparency, so he can guage effectiveness. Ideally, he would like to pick the cash price or the pooled price on any given day. He wants it both ways.

How would the CWB operate a daily cash price and a pooled account? The pooled account is always disadvantaged - getting less grain when the price is rising, and getting more grain when the price is falling. You can see the impact on the pooled price.

How would the CWB show a daily cash price when it may negotiate different prices for the same quality of grain on any given day, depending on destination?

This appears to be an accountability measure more than anything. Except, which prices should be shown on any given day? The tradable value to Japan or the tradable value to China? I can assure you they are different values.

Hence what happens in the open market - the law of one price. You don't see a separate cash price at PNW for the Japanese, do you? Does that mean that the Japanese don't ever pay a premium for US wheat, only for Cdn and Aussie wheat? I don't think so.

So the cosmetic language of no-cost export license and cash pricing from the monopoly all camouflage and diminsh the real outcome - get rid of the single desk selling. These arguments are geared to have simplistic policitical appeal, and to diminish their impacts. Except, they can't go all the way and say "end the CWB and single desk selling", because they know that argument won't win farmers' votes.

I have heard no one argue that the CWB may not survive in an open market as an organization. But the single desk benefits will not survive. And does western Canada really need another grain marketing organization (ie privatized CWB) if there is an open market?

Tom

[charliep]

Does the above arguements apply to both wheat and barley equally. What value does the CWB provide the feed barley market? Similar question for malt barley. The August/July CWB Grain Matters article (page 8) highlighted some issues but I was not able to find it at the CWB web site.

[parsley]

thalpenny,

"The reason things are couched that way", as you put it, Moderator thalpenny, is because that is the way the legislation is actually written!

I don't have any difficulty having to follow what Parliament instructs; that is democracy, but I do have difficulty with the fact that the Canadian Wheat Board refuses to follow its'governing Act.

They deny licenses to Prairie farmers. PLUS...They dip out money,... dip, dip, dip, to pay for accredited exporters, corporations and non-DA farmers' licensing expenses , out of the farmers'pooling accounts even though Parliament says the Federal Government must pay! PLUS...They break their Code of Conduct by allowing Goodale's appointee to dip into the pooling accounts to donate to the Liberal Party of Canada. PLUS...They won't give a Prairie farmer a license until he does the buyback, even though Parliament does NOT require farmers to do the Board's 'Made-up-in-the-Backroom Buyback' to get a license. And on and on.

Chairman Ritter, without shame, told the Standing Committee of Agriculture that he wasn't sure whether or not the CWB can issue no-buyback export licenses and he'd have to consult with a lawyer to find out, but this directly contradicts the fact that they are issuing no-buyback licenses all the time. This reflects the Board's disdain for not only elected representatives, but for the law. And for farmers.

But the Chairman is not the only one defending and condoning when the CWB ignores the law and bends the law and disdains the law. It is a common practice by the CWB staff, thalpenny.

Parsley

[parsley]

Parsley, below is the part of the regs that governs the producer direct sale.

What would you determine to be the 'pecuniary benefit' that exists by virtue of the prohibition of the export of grain? Obviously, the legislators understood that by granting the single-desk, it created benefits for farmers that would not exist if allowed to be cherry picked. An arbitrary no-cost export license would bid those benefits away for all, and therefore adversely affect the marketing of the organization.

Face it, you want to be able to do just that - access the US market unimpeded whenever the spot cash price looks better than the pooled price. You want to extract that value, even if it is less than the CWB may be capturing out of the US market and end up lowering the ability of the CWB to extract a premium. Again, then the North Dakota Wheat Commission will fire up the trade challenge machine for sure.


LICENCES


14. The Corporation may grant a licence for the export, or for the sale or purchase for delivery outside Canada, of wheat, wheat products, barley or barley products if

(a) the export, sale or purchase of the grain or products for which the licence is sought does not adversely affect the marketing by the Corporation, in interprovincial or export trade, of grain grown in Canada; and

(b) the applicant pays to the Corporation a sum of money that, in the opinion of the Corporation, represents the pecuniary benefit enuring to the applicant pursuant to the granting of the licence, arising solely by reason of the prohibition of the export of that grain or those products without a licence, and the then existing differences between the prices of that grain or those products inside and outside Canada. SOR/79-110, s. 1; SOR/86-160, s. 1; SOR/89-281, s. 4; SOR/95-338, s. 1; SOR/99-391, s. 1(E).