Canada: CWB supporters claim fight against government not over

The Canadian Wheat Board's monopoly over the sale of western wheat and barley will officially end Aug. 1, but supporters of the monopoly say their fight against the Canadian government is not over, Leader-Post reported on July, 26.

"Farmers are not taking this sitting down," Bill Gehl of the Canadian Wheat Board Alliance told reporters at press conference on July, 25. "We are not quitting. We are not giving up."

In June, the Federal Court of Appeal found Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz did not break the law when he introduced legislation to end the CWB's monopoly on wheat and barley sales.

Gehl, a grain farmer, said despite the defeat and the certainty that western grain markets will be open, farmers are moving ahead with a C$17-billion constitutional and class-action lawsuit against the government.

"Certainly a C$17-billion class-action lawsuit is nothing to sneeze at. I think that farmers realize there is a lot to lose here and have come out to support us," he said.

Opponents of the decision to remove the CWB's monopoly, or single desk, say the way the government dealt with the board was "undemocratic".

"They invoked closure. They limited debate," National Farmers Union president Terry Boehm said. "We have never witnessed this sort of behaviour from a government, particularly on a fundamental issue like this - we feel this is not part of the democratic fabric that Canadians have come to expect from their government."

Boehm said elimination of the CWB monopoly will hurt the bottom line of Canadian farmers in the long run by getting rid of their advantage over international competition. He said the decision could diminish the quality of grain coming out of Western Canada because wheat and barley produced in Canada will be blended with other more inferior grains.

"Agriculture across the country is suffering as the result of a single-minded goal of destroying the single desk of CWB. We think this is complete nonsense," Boehm said.

Farmers may still choose to market their grain with the CWB, but wheat board marketing will be voluntary.

27 July, 2012