Canadian Wheat Board chairman Allan Oberg.Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press
The Canadian Wheat Board is spending $1.4-million on a media campaign aimed at arousing public opinion against the Harper government's plan to scrap the board's role as sole marketer of Prairie wheat and barley.
The outlay is "entirely justifiable," says wheat board chairman Allen Oberg – amounting to 7 cents a tonne of wheat sold, and a drop in the bucket compared with the potential loss of $500-million in cash benefits that, according to the CWB, it returns to farmers each year.
The marketing costs are in addition to an estimated $100,000 – a half-cent per tonne – in projected legal expenses to fund a court challenge to Ottawa's legislation to end the board's monopoly selling role.
It represents an obligation by the board, on behalf of farmers, to see if the government's plan to pass legislation without reference to a plebiscite of growers is actually legal, Mr. Oberg, an Alberta farmer, told The Globe and Mail editorial board on Friday.
When Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz tabled the enabling legislation, "he broke the law" by not letting farmers determine the fate of the board, Mr. Oberg said. Mr. Ritz, in turn, says farmers have spoken by returning a vast majority of Conservative MPs in the Prairie provinces during the May federal election that delivered a Tory majority.
Board officials hope Canadians, including Central Canadian urban commuters, will be moved by the message that Ottawa is driving "a steamroller" over the rights of farmers in pushing rapid passage of the bill and without the accustomed level of committee discussion in Parliament.
The board held its own grower plebiscite over the summer that elicited 40,000 votes, representing 57 per cent of the potential farmer electorate. Mr. Oberg and his marketing officers said that is a good response in a mailed ballot campaign. Of those, 62 per cent of wheat farmers voted for the board's continuing role; 51 per cent of barley farmers supported it.
Mr. Oberg resisted the view that the game is over and the board should now turn to figuring out its role in the post-monopoly era. He predicted in the absence of a single marketing desk, the organization would have a short lifespan, shrivelling away as government funding and payment guarantees end within five years.
The board would also lack the storage and shipping facilities and access to farmers enjoyed by the big grain companies. "There is no structure that delivers anywhere close to the value of the single desk [marketing agency]" he said.
In addition, Mr. Oberg argues the board's absence would wipe out smaller grain companies and force the consolidation of farms, as smaller operators find it difficult to compete by selling wheat on their own and in buying farm inputs in sufficient volumes.