Commentaries

[parsley]

National Post
June 23,2008
by Lorne Gunter


The Wheat Board should remain silent



On Friday, a federal court judge ruled unconstitutional a two-year-old ban by the federal government prohibiting the Canadian Wheat Board (CWB) from spending farmer's money advocating for its continued monopoly over western grain sales.

This is a misguided decision.

All farmers from British Columbia's northeastern Peace Country across the vast prairie breadbasket to Lake of the Woods are required to sell their wheat and barley only to the CWB, unless it is destined for animal consumption.

Those who attempt to sell directly to other buyers offering higher prices have been subjected to pre-dawn raids of their farms, seizures of their crops and trucks even imprisonment and repeated strip searches.

In 2006, in an attempt to win Western farmers more freedom to conduct their business as they see fit, the Harper government initiated a number of extra-Parliamentary measures designed to break the CWB's monopoly (which, technically, is a monopsony -- one buyer, many sellers, rather than one seller and many buyers).

Without a majority in the House of Commons to change the CWB law, the Tories tried, instead, to introduce market freedoms through the back door. This was only ever a second-best move, and it was fraught from the start with political and legal risks.

The board decided to oppose the government, even though it is a not-quite arms-length branch of the government, and to spend farmers' money on propaganda efforts on behalf of its own survival.

The Harper government ordered it to stay out of the debate and to refrain from diverting money from grain sales -- money that should have gone into farmers' pockets -- to its self-serving lobbying campaigns.

Mr. Justice Roger Hughes ruled on Friday, however, that because the board is controlled by farmers (an assertion that is only partially true), it was a violation of farmers' Charter rights to forbid the CWB from being an active participant in the national debate over its future.


It is a fallacy that the CWB is "farmer-controlled." Of the 15 members of the board of directors, only 10 are elected by farmers. The other five are appointed by Ottawa.

Over time, if the Conservatives stay in power long enough, they will certainly appoint five directors who favour their pro-market innovations. Those five would then be able to get together with the three or four pro-market directors typically elected by farmers to break the monopoly.

Then just watch the reaction of CWB supporters. Now, while the five federal appointees are mostly pro-board Liberals, the balance works in the board supporters' favour. So they are quick to insist the Harper government cannot change a thing about the monopoly because that board represents the democratic will of farmers. But when the balance shifts against them, they will be the first to cry that the appointed directors are helping to subvert farmers' wishes, even though the board would be no more or less "farmer-controlled" than it is now.

More importantly, though, what of the farmers who wish to be released from bondage to the board, from indentured servitude to the Western wheat masters? What about their Charter rights not to see a substantial portion from the proceeds of their grain sales diverted into ad campaigns and lobbying efforts directed at keeping them shackled to the CWB?

The Harper government issued its gag order against the CWB in part because it recognized that there are at least as many farmers who want out of the board's grasp as there are who want it continued. So board spending on lobbying amounts to robbing those who want out to pay for efforts to keep them in.

"How can the Charter possibly allow a government institution to champion the political views of one group of farmers over another?" asked Mike Bast, chair of the Western Canadian Wheat Growers. Friday's ruling permits the board to use pro-market farmers' funds against them, he explained.

There is an easy solution: Give farmers true control over the CWB, but make participation in it voluntary. Ensure the farmer-controlled board is making decisions in the best interests of farmers, by forcing them to compete for farmers' grain, rather than use government coercion to force farmer participation. Otherwise, self-interested political decisions will always be as high on the board's priority list as maximizing returns for farmers.

The CWB has always claimed it gets more for farmers collectively than they could get for themselves individually. Let it prove it by taking away its monopoly.

lgunter@shaw.ca

[agstar77]

The Plain Truth from the National ?Post . What a load of c... Since when did the people in TO. really care about Western Canada. So if 10 of 15 directors are elected farmers , this not farmer controlled , yeah right. So how can Stevie tell us what to do with 35 % of the popular vote?

[AdamSmith]

Do the directors order customs to sieze trucks at the border or is that someone else Agstar?

Do the directors establish the penalties for exporting without a valid licence or does someone else?

Do the directors have the power to order people "jailed" like Andy McMechan or does some other branch of government do that Agstar?

You say farmers control it, so then when open market supporters gain control of the CWB they can order the feds to kill it (the cwb) and it will be done, just like that?

Is that the way it works Agstar?

[parsley]

Was it organic directors who wanted to give organic farmers set buyback prices?

Do other directors want to yank back organic's set buybacks?

Which Directors sets Board policy which gives one buyback one day and demands a different buyback on a different month?.."He loves me, he loves me not"... does it dependupon which group curries favor, or does it depend upon how many letters of complaint come in?

Question: If I plunked a little cash in an envelope, (not bribery, mind you, just encouragement)would I get a more favourable buyback rate?


The B od D can make it happen, you know.

Parsley


PS

I wonder how the feed mills buying millions of bushels of grain negotiated ZERO cost buybacks. Not a bloody dime. Did Paris Hiltonn negotiate than one?

[parsley]

agstar,

You seem to get a "heads up" (a literary expression for all purposes of this intent) from single-desk directors of the Canadian Wheat Board.

At least, you seem well tuned in to CWB Director-Activities, so I am going to assume you are not a clairvoyant.

Therefore, would you act as a lobbyist-for-hire on behalf of a group of farmers, to get a CWB "head or two up" that might vote for lower buybacks, the same as the feed mills have? A fellow single desker won't get any backs up, that's for sure.

What would a fair figure be for lobbying services for a singledesker? Say twenty thousand Canadian for an intensive back-breaking month's work?

That is pretty much the cost of savings on a heaped-up load.


Or are you already lobbying for another group of growers?

Parsley

PS

Would GST be on on top of you, too?

[Kodiak]

Agstar, does this not at least give you a little reason to shudder? Do you ever wonder if the basis of the following is based on - and where it could lead?

First. The Charter of Rights and Freedoms gives an organization of the Government the right to my property. It gives the CWB, its agency, the right to do with my property what it likes - demand I deliver it to them, then sell it when it wants, and pay me if it wants what it wants when it wants.

As a citizen I do not have the same right. The product I invest in and produce is my property. But I do not have the same right to that property that the Government, through its agency the CWB, does. I do not have the same right as the CWB to sell it to whoever I want. I do not have the same right as the CWB to convert my grain, through its sale, to cash.

Second. An organization of Government, the CWB, is guaranteed the right to express itself. And it can use any amount of my property, and the property of others, to make that expression. In fact it could use the property of the Government of Canada if it wanted.

As a citizen I am also guaranteed the right to express myself. But I cannot use anyone else’s property to do so. I cannot use the property of the Government of Canada. If I did, I would be charged and convicted. Probably under the Charter - probably also with theft.

Above is what we are faced with. The court has confirmed it.

The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. For who?

[stubblejumper]

sounds like more propoganda written by david anderson

[parsley]

Didja hear the laytest one about this big marketing Goliath who took a notion to sell organic grain, so's they plopped together a swack of it and shipped 'er out, but the sharpies who bought it saw them a'comin, so's the buyer, well, he done took the grain and declared bankruptcy before Goliath could holler out "licketysplew", and poor old Goliath ended up holdin' the bag, and peein' his pants ('scuse the word stubblejumper, as i"m just a repeatin' it), but to no avail, the money was not a'comin and the grain was a'gone, so's the Goliath of a corporashun hadda go and get somma that money from sum of the owners of the money that done believed Goliaths wuz good biznesspeoples,

Damndest thing. They wuz.

They plain took that money out of the savings pot under the bed, and not announced it aloud, so they dun good they sez.

In the future, these boys will be able to keep up with them shysters if they justa keepa practicin' some.

Parsley

[parsley]

WINNIPEG FREE PRESS
24 June, 2008
Editorial

Editorial - Reopening debate



The gag order that former Agriculture minister Chuck Strahl issued to the Canadian Wheat Board (CWB) in October of 2006 was very clear in its message:

Cease and desist all advocacy that runs contrary to the government's intent to destroy the board's monopoly powers.

It was also outside the powers of the minister to order such an edict. If the current minister, Gerry Ritz, wants to meddle in the day-to-day business of the board, he will have to fundamentally alter the governing act to do so.

And that would not do the board, the farmers nor the government much favour.

The wheat board was taken out of the realm of government agencies and Crown corporations in 1998 and put under the control of its 15-person board.

Ten of the directors are elected by farmers and five are appointed by the federal government.

Mr. Justice Robert T. Hughes, of the Federal Court of Canada, last week ruled appropriately that this reform removed the wheat board from government direction.

Mr. Strahl's directive, then, could be of no force. He further found that Mr. Strahl attempted to cloak his gag order as a concern for the misspending of farmers' dues paid to the board.

There was no evidence to indicate that the board was spending large amounts of money to counter the government's plans.

Mr. Strahl and Prime Minister Stephen Harper both adopted an aggressive, antagonistic approach at times in their campaign to crush the CWB's monopoly. And officials of the wheat board responded, often in kind.

The government has a good case to make that barley farmers should not be tethered to a marketing agent they do not support -- the majority of those polled have voted to do away with the board's monopoly over their crop.

It has not yet made that case with wheat farmers, however. The government's argument was not helped by the gag order's intent to remove from the discussion the player that harboured the most data and detail on the marketer's place and history in international trade.

In their haste to bring about change, the Conservatives have resorted to bully tactics.

Mr. Harper and his agriculture ministers should see that legitimate reform requires the force of law that is, as it has been said, both proper and fair.

Parliament or a majority government could legitimately decide that a monopoly has no place in Canada as it forges boldly to trade in an increasingly deregulated, competitive world.

No one would gain, however, by writing legislation to turn an arm's-length and vigorous marketing body into a lap dog of government.

[parsley]

WINNIPEG FREE PRESS
24 June, 2008

Larry Kusch
Let farmers, not Ottawa, decide CWB's future: Hill



ANY changes to the Canadian Wheat Board's powers should be made democratically and follow the law of the land, the CWB's chairman said Monday, responding to a statement on Friday by Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

"We believe, along with the vast majority of western Canadian producers, that farmers -- not government -- should make the decisions about the future of grain marketing through the CWB," said the wheat board's Larry Hill. "Those decisions need to be made democratically and carried out with strict attention to the processes laid out by law," he said in a statement.

Hill was reacting to comments by Harper on Friday after a third court ruling in less than a year involving Ottawa and the CWB that had gone against the Conservative government.

Harper said in part: "Western Canadian farmers want this (marketing) freedom and they are going to get it. And anybody who stands in their way is going to get walked over."

Ottawa attempted to end the wheat board's barley marketing monopoly through order in council last year, but the Federal Court ruled in July that the government had exceeded its authority and needed to introduce a bill in the House of Commons to achieve its goal.

An appeals court upheld the original decision in February.

On Friday, a different Federal Court judge ruled that a federal gag order preventing the wheat board from spending any money to defend its single desk marketing system violated the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

"The CWB works for farmers and follows the directions set by its board of directors, the majority of whom are elected by farmers," Hill said.

Elections will be held this fall for five of the 10 wheat board directors that are chosen by farmers. Ottawa names the other five directors -- including the president and CEO.

larry.kusch@freepress.mb.ca