Amendments to the federal Canadian Wheat Board Act and related statutes to deregulate Prairie barley marketing will be introduced in the House of Commons “early next week,” Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz said Friday.
“This bill will deliver on our Throne Speech commitment and will bring barley marketing freedom to the strong and growing majority of producers who are demanding it,” Ritz said in a release.
Ritz’s comments followed an appearance at a rally organized Friday in Regina by the Western Barley Growers Association, a pro-deregulation farmers’ group.
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The announcement followed press releases from like-minded groups such as GrainVision and the Market Choice Alliance earlier Friday, calling for opposition politicians to support Ritz’s planned amendments.
But survival for such a bill in the current minority-government House of Commons is seen as unlikely at best, with the Liberals, NDP and Bloc Quebecois all having expressed opposition to such a proposal.
The Canadian Press (CP) quoted Ritz as saying in Regina that “if it takes a confidence motion we’ll go there” to get the bill passed, meaning the Conservatives may now consider declaring the bill a confidence vote that could topple the government and force a new federal election unless the opposition parties reconsider.
Also lining up against the bill, the Friends of the Canadian Wheat Board — a farmers’ group supporting the CWB’s current single marketing desk for Prairie barley — said earlier this week that to table such legislation without first consulting with the CWB’s board of directors and holding a referendum for Prairie barley growers, as per the CWB Act, would set off another court challenge.
The group had previously challenged the Conservative government’s plans to deregulate Prairie barley by order-in-council and won at Federal Court in July. The government sought to appeal that ruling but its appeal was rejected Tuesday.
Non-binding
Ken Ritter, chairman of the CWB, said in a release Friday that the government’s actions “circumvent a process put in place to give grain producers the final say over their own marketing system.”
The board’s directors, he said, “have not been consulted on this legislation. Besides contravening the (CWB) Act, this also raises concerns about respect for the democratic process and recognition of elected directors as the legitimate representatives of farmers.”
Furthermore, he said, the federal government’s 2007 barley growers’ plebiscite and its three-option question “cannot constitute a valid referendum” to support Ritz’s bill. The federal ag minister at that time, Chuck Strahl, had stated the plebiscite was non-binding, Ritter said.
The WBGA-backed rally at the Saskatchewan Legislature Friday further illustrated the divide between Prairie farmers on this issue. About 250 attended, CP reported.
According to CBC on Friday, some among the group gathered to see Ritz speak were “those who were pushing and shoving, screaming and swearing and tearing up signs,” and the gathering included “a number of obscenity-laced debates” before the minister appeared.
Some protesters bore signs that read, “CWB: Our board, our business,” while “many more” carried signs calling for “Barley freedom now,” CBC reported.
