Wisdom of the elders, CWB edition.

Farmers who were born out of the Depression-era have a long perspective on farming issues. A couple of my interviewees who are in their 70s weighed in on the Canadian Wheat Board. A historical perspective:

"The first generation struggled to get it established. The second generation fully understood why it was so. The third generation got the most benefit out of it. The fourth generation have no idea what the background is and don't make any effort even to try to find out or care or what. And it seems to be something in the human psyche that – are they going to have to learn all over again?"

And a comment on ideology:

"It's true, if we don't have a Wheat Board you get your freedom, but then the other people that support the Wheat Board don't have the freedom of having the benefits of a single desk that works... But the farmers think that they're going to be able to load up their trucks and take it across the border and get the premium price. But when you get down there you're going to find out that all the grain companies up here have got farmers' grain that they bought, they're down there selling too – and often times to mills that grain companies like Cargill up here own, they own the mills down there, so who do you think they're going to get it from? And the only way you can sell it to their mill is if you undersell what they're buying it from from the farmers up here. Why should they pay you more for what they can buy from the stupid farmer who sells it off-Board here? And that's the argument. They say, 'well, yeah, but I want my freedom I guess.'"

Tyranny of the Majority

I've changed my mind about the Canadian Wheat Board. I now actively welcome its demise, as the result of an irresistible argument that you may have heard making the rounds. It goes like this:

24.32% of voting-age Canadians voted for the Conservative government and gave it a majority. These voters included Torontonians who couldn't tell a wheatfield from a field of flax and have never heard of the Canadian Wheat Board. Nevertheless, this win obviously gave the government a mandate to repeal the Act of Parliament that gave the CWB its monopsony over prairie wheat and barley. This is a far more democratic way of dealing with the farmer-funded organization and its farmer-elected representatives. In the name of 'marketing freedom', the Conservatives will overturn this tyrannical majority rule and wheat and barley farmers will be able to sell to whichever of the four multinationals that control 80% of the grain trade they choose.

In light of this persuasive argument, I too have chosen to embrace the principles of 'minority rules' and 'freedom of contract'. I hereby announce my choice to disregard the laws of my country, some of which I personally do not benefit from and did not personally approve of. Therefore, as an underrepresented minority, I refute our electoral system whereby the majority controls the political system, and the unfair laws that support that system. My household and I have freely contracted with the government of Norway and are now Norwegians.

Conservatives snub democracy, farmers with move to dismantle Wheat Board

I couldn't be silent on the issue of the Canadian Wheat Board. It's in my blood. This is an article I wrote that will be appearing in a provincial NDP newsletter in June (so bear in mind the audience, when reading). For another angle that brings in the labour movement, see Simon Enoch's article.

On May 17, Conservative Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz terminated a longstanding debate in Western Canada by announcing his government's intention to end the Canadian Wheat Board's monopoly on marketing wheat and barley.

On one level, the debate is economic – do farmers do better with a monopoly seller representing them in the global marketplace by pooling their grain and sharing the average proceeds? This question has been conclusively answered 'yes' by many academic studies and trade inquiries.

However, the real issue at stake is an ideological one. The anti-CWB side argues private entrepreneurs should have the economic right to market their own grain and barley and compete with each other for the best price. The pro-CWB side argues in favour of economic cooperation and food sovereignty - values that have historically typified the Canadian farm movement and were crucial in the CWB’s formation.

The Canadian Wheat Board evolved in response to western farmers' lack of market power in the early part of the twentieth century when federal government policy set up the West as cheap providers of raw materials for Eastern industry. These farmers felt powerless against duopolistic railways, elevator companies, and the Winnipeg Grain Exchange. In the face of this, farmers' natural inclination was to take matters into their own hands, acting collectively for the good of the farm community: the Grain Growers Grain Company, the Wheat Pools, and finally the Wheat Board – made mandatory in 1943 – resulted.

Through its three guiding principles - single desk selling, price pooling, and government guarantees - the Wheat Board provides stability and market power to farmers. Unlike a private grain company, whose shareholders demand ever-increasing profits, the Board returns more than 95 per cent of its sales proceeds to farmers.

Of course, this is only part of what the CWB does. The Wheat Board also uses its considerable influence to advocate for farmers with Canadian National and Canadian Pacific, taking these railways to court when they have provided substandard service to farmers. The CWB also invests heavily in wheat and barley research, funding 60 per cent of the Canadian International Grains Institute. The Wheat Board has spent decades building markets that promote the superior reputation of Canadian wheat. These are services that the private sector either will not currently perform or will only do for a profit.

The Wheat Board is one of the last major institutions created by our ancestors to support prairie farmers. Farmers have lost other farmer-controlled institutions such as the Pools and supportive government programs such as the Crow Rate. In a situation that hearkens back to the 1900s, western farmers today are at the whims of a duopolistic rail transport system and the four companies who control more than 80 per cent of the global grain trade. More than an economic loss, though, the destruction of the Wheat Board seems to indicate the destruction of the cooperative values of our Saskatchewan farming ancestors.

Perhaps the most relevant lesson from the Wheat Board's impending demise for both rural and urban folk involves the federal government's conception of democracy. CWB opponents claim the recent election of a federal Conservative majority government, regardless of the tiny percentage of those voters who are farmers, means that the government has a clear mandate to kill the CWB.

CWB supporters point out that there already is a democratic mechanism to change the Board’s mandate. Since 1998, farmers who sell wheat and barley have the democratic right to elect directors to the CWB to carry out their wishes. And, since these elections began, 70 per cent of farmers have consistently voted in pro-CWB directors.

It's hard not to see Ritz's termination of the Wheat Board debate as a continuation of Conservative attempts to erode democracy by bypassing democratic processes, ignoring stakeholder desires, and ruling autocratically. For our food system, it means that we have lost control of a major staple and a major counterforce to multinational agribusiness giants.