Wheat 'n' Barley

As expected Buckdog blogged this before I got around to it. Pale had mentioned before that the 'brown and white' dog is a goto site for perspective on the CWB.

The Canadian Wheat Board has just ran elections for 5 of 10 elected directors on the board. The remaining 5 directors ( for a total of 15 ) are appointed by the Federal Government. No surprise that the 5 gov't directors favour an open market for western wheat and barley.

The election yielded 4 of 5 seats to pro-single desk directors. That makes the overall split 8 / 7 favouring a single desk system ( the current status quo ).

To get a real feel for the election you should read the article in the Leader-Post by Bruce Johnson linked by Buckdog.
The juicy parts are as follows:

Single-desk supporters won four of five seats in the recent Canadian
Wheat Board director elections, despite last-minute changes to the
voters list and election financing rules by the federal Conservative
government and lobbying for pro-marketing choice candidates by
Saskatchewan Tory MPs.

...

Of the 31,244 producers on the list of eligible voters, about 53 per
cent voted -- the highest voter turnout in the 10-year history of
elections of producer-directors.

...

Stewart Wells, president of the National Farmers Union, said producers
weren’t intimidated by the Harper government’s three-year campaign to
make the CWB “dysfunctional.”

...

But the head of the Western Canadian Wheat Growers contends CWB
director elections are “not reliable indicators of farmer opinion.’’
With voters lists drawn from CWB permit book holders, the elections are
stacked in favour of single-desk supporters, said Cherilyn Jolly-Nagel,
president of WCWG.

The CBC also has a story on the CWB election. Scroll down in the comments for an interesting bit from Romney2012. With that 'user name' you might be surprised at his perspective ... on the CWB ... but not on anything else.

I am not a farmer so I don't get a vote on this topic ( as it should be ) and my opinion is also not of much importance. However, the actions of the government are of my concern.

I think there should be a plebiscite / referendum held on the CWB question. The question / process recently held was a travesty, pure and simple.

Good advice to a courtroom lawyer is - do not ask a question that you do not already know the answer to. Also good advice is - do not hold a plebiscite if you are not prepared to live with the decision.

That's the risk of holding a plebiscites. Another risk is that if the CWB is turfed, it will not be possible, under current NAFTA rules, to bring it back. If the CWB is lost, it is lost for good.

The right thing to do is to ask a fair, clear question - and ask only the people affected by the CWB. The reason to ask the question is because the producers do not have a free choice in how to market their grains and that is an imposition on their freedoms. It appears, by the results of the CWB election, that most producers want a single desk. Or at least that is the opinion of the majority of the 53 % that could be bothered to vote. And that is in spite of all the shenanigans of the Cons.

As important as the question to be asked is who is it asked of.

I say every acre should be asked. As odd as that sounds I feel it is the way to go. Give one vote to every acre in CWB jurisdiction. The land owner or the renter gets to do the voting. Whoever makes the decision as to what crop gets planted. This would vastly expand the people that get to vote the question. Just because a person chooses not to grow wheat or barley doesn't mean that he/she wouldn't grow those grains if they had free choice in marketing them. Leave out all the acres that do not grow an annual crop ( alfalfa production, pasture land ). That restriction takes out land that could fairly grow wheat & barley ( alfalfa land ) but leaves in land that really shouldn't grow any annual crop ( poor grade land that should be pasture ). It is a trade off but it is also a reasonable compromise. By allowing each acre one vote doesn't skew the results by giving one vote per producer, no matter how much or little land they have in production.

The question of who can finance campaigning for and against this question must also be addressed. I would say a limit of $20,000 for any individual and $100,000 for any organization would be fair. This gets a little sticky because it's not right that an election can be bought.

Now for the question:

Do you favour the retention of the Canadian Wheat Board, with it's current monopoly & geographic jurisdiction, as the sole marketer of Western wheat and barley. Yes or No.

I am a supporter of the CWB, but that is irrelevant because I am not a producer. I would just like to see a fair decision made so that we can move on.

The problem with my question and process is that it would likely mean the end of the CWB. However, if that is the accurate will of the people restricted by the CWB --- so be it.

This post went on longer than I thought it would. Verbose, thy name is willy.

P.S. - These are just my opinions. There's an outside chance I don't know what I am talking about. The producers are not calling for a plebiscite on the question. Some are just voting Con - and figuring that they will end the CWB with the stroke of a pen. In that assumption, they are right - the Cons campaign on that plank. Which leaves the voice of all producers unheard on the specific question.