CTV reports, “The Canadian Wheat Board’s monopoly on western wheat and barley, a mainstay of Prairie agriculture for generations, is over. …The Harper Conservatives flexed their majority muscle Monday night and stripped the board of its legal lock on Prairie wheat and barley crops. The House of Commons voted by a 153-120 margin to support the bill that ends the board’s monopoly. …With the passage of Bill C-18 through the House of Commons and what is expected to be a quick, pre-Christmas run through the Senate, the western grain industry will change for better or worse, depending on who is doing the talking. …The legislation doesn’t kill the board. It allows an interim Canadian Wheat Board to act as a voluntary marketing entity, supported by the federal government, while it transitions to full private ownership. Farmers will still be able to sell grain there. But the agency will have to compete with other agribusiness players.”
The Globe and Mail adds (with their bias), “Conservative MPs easily outvoted their NDP and Liberal rivals Monday evening to pass the Marketing Freedom for Grain Farmers Act in the Commons. The vote passed 153 to 120. As of Aug. 1, 2012, western Canadian farmers will be free of the wheat board’s monopoly and no longer forced to sell their wheat and barley through the agency. Instead, for the first time in nearly seven decades, they will be able to negotiate their own deals. …Before it can become law and take effect, the legislation must still be approved by the Senate, where the Tories also outnumber their rivals and can ensure its passage.”
The Winnipeg Free Press notes, “The legislation is expected to pass the Senate before it rises for Christmas. To make sure that happens, Senate leaders agreed to add two sitting days to its schedule each week.”
And Reuters adds, “The legislation faces a court challenge on December 6 by the Wheat Board, which argues that the bill is illegal because the government did not hold a farmer vote on ending the monopoly.” The Council of Canadians will intervene in that challenge against C-18. In giving the Council of Canadians, PSAC, Food Secure Canada, and the ETC Group standing in this challenge to be heard in Winnipeg, the Federal Court said, “I agree with the Moving Parties that neither the Friends of the CWB nor the Canadian Wheat Board intend to address how section 47.1 is to be interpreted in a manner that accords with NAFTA or the Charter. In my view, the Moving Parties will be able to assist the Court in a useful way, bringing to bear a distinct perspective of legal issues of public interest concerning the interpretation of section 47.1. In the circumstances, it is in the interests of justice that the Moving Parties be permitted to intervene…”
To better understand the role the Canadian Wheat Board has played, listen to Professor John Herd Thompson explain its history on CBC Radio at http://canadians.org/blog/?p=11957.
