Growing defiance on western farms
Prairie farmers are willing to risk jail
in their fight with the federal wheat board
By DAWN WALTON AND PATRICK BRETHOUR
Friday, November 1, 2002 – Page A3
LETHBRIDGE and CALGARY -- Jonathan Ness was shaken as he watched security officers handcuff his father and escort the 58-year-old farmer to an Alberta jail. The crime: Jim Ness donated two sacks of barley to a 4-H club in Montana without an export permit from the Canadian Wheat Board.
Mr. Ness could pay a $1,000 fine, but he has decided instead to spend 25 days in jail to highlight the push to end the wheat board's 60-year-old monopoly. "I'm very proud of what he's doing, very proud," his 22-year-old son said.
Yesterday, hundreds of people -- including Alberta Premier Ralph Klein -- rallied in Lethbridge to show their support as 13 Prairie farmers turned themselves in at the provincial courthouse rather than pay fines for similar acts of defiance in 1996.
Farmers in shackles are the most visible sign of the growing challenge to the wheat board's monopoly on selling Western wheat and barley. The board -- a remnant of Second-World-War-era central planning -- is under siege from dissident farmers, Alberta politicians and the United States, which is again looking at levying heavy tariffs to counter what it says are the CWB's unfair trading practices.
All three offensives are coming to a head this month, but the most serious threat may have the lowest profile: the election of five new directors who could become the catalyst for a referendum among farmers on the wheat board's future.
Candidates who want to end the wheat board's monopoly are running in each of those races. By themselves, they do not have the power to do so. But chairman Ken Ritter said yesterday that if the antimonopoly candidates sweep the election, the board will consider calling a plebiscite on making the CWB a voluntary organization.
One of those antimonopoly candidates summed up his straightforward campaign position. "It's my business and I should be able to pick and choose who I sell to," Buck Spencer said.
Art Enns, who produces several grain crops near Morris, Man., not far from the U.S. border, sympathizes with the dissident farmers, but isn't sure what they'll gain other than headlines.
"I quietly hope that after this fall's election that a lot of the things will start getting addressed, that the minister will start seriously looking at it," Mr. Enns said.
Wheat board supporters say that if any farmers are allowed to opt out, the CWB's market power will be fatally diluted.
"It's interesting to hear them speak about options and choice, but at the end of the day does it benefit a few individual producers or the whole?" said John Sandborn, who produces wheat, barley and canola at his 1,415-hectare farm in Benito, Man.
The board -- the world's largest seller of wheat and barley -- has consistently argued that it can extract premium prices because it is guaranteed supply from Canadian farmers. However, it says it cannot release detailed pricing information for competitive reasons.
Public Works Minister Ralph Goodale, the minister responsible for the wheat board, said in an interview yesterday he would abide by any clear verdict from farmers on changing the CWB's mandate.
Alberta is lending its weight to the farmers' challenge of the wheat board's authority, with Mr. Klein vowing yesterday to try and wrest authority for wheat sales from the federal government.
Provincial Progressive Conservative MLA Mark Hlady has introduced a private member's bill that would allow Alberta wheat and barley growers to decide from year to year whether to market their grain in the province on their own or through the CWB. The bill asks Mr. Goodale to approve it, which the minister says he will not do.
If that remains the case, Mr. Hlady has another bill ready to go that says Alberta doesn't need federal approval.
Mr. Goodale said such a move is unconstitutional, but Alberta's Premier said yesterday that the province will take the federal government to court if necessary.
"I believe there should be a constitutional challenge when decent, hard-working Alberta farmers are willing to take the extreme measure of going to jail for the sake of fundamental freedoms that other businesses take for granted," Mr. Klein said.
Even as some Canadians push for changes to the CWB, the United States is examining whether to levy antidumping and retaliatory tariffs on Canadian wheat. Wheat producers in North Dakota, who grow the same kind of high-protein grain as Prairie farmers in this country, are pushing for antidumping and countervailing duties that could cost the Canadian industry $100-million (U.S.) a year.
Mr. Goodale said Canada will retaliate if the United States imposes duties without clear proof of wrongdoing by the wheat board. |
