OTTAWA — Neither the chicken nor the egg can claim to be first when it comes to how the federal government will make a landmark change to Canadian agricultural policy, says the head of the Canadian Wheat Board.
But they’ll be next, Allen Oberg warned Wednesday as he prepared to testify before a parliamentary committee briefly reviewing the legislation to dismantle his agency.
Once the federal Conservatives have dispensed with a single desk to market Canadian wheat, their next target could well be the deregulation of other commodities, such as milk, eggs and chicken, Oberg said in an interview.
“It seems very hypocritical that the government could be so against the Canadian Wheat Board on the principle that we need to give farmers marketing freedom and then on the other hand be supportive of supply management, which is even far more restrictive from a freedom perspective,” Oberg said.
The Harper government had made no secret of its desire to shut down the existing wheat board system, arguing that farmers will be better off if they can compete on market terms.
Among other benefits, they say a free market will create jobs. Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz appeared at a malting facility earlier this week to tout new investment already being promised since he introduced the bill in late October.
It’s not apparent that they have other commodities in their sights. The Tories have been vocal about their support for the way industries like dairy, eggs and chickens are handled, saying during the election and again in June’s throne speech that they’ll protect and defend those supply management programs in free trade talks.
Farmers from those industries reside in the vote-rich areas of Ontario and Quebec that were the recipients of so much Conservative focus during the spring election.
Meanwhile, prairie farmers who knew that dismantling the wheat board was a Tory policy still returned the party to office.
Conservatives say their majority in the Commons gives the government a mandate to go ahead and dismantle the wheat board even without the legally-required plebiscite among farmers.
Oberg said that’s not a fair assumption. He used his own area as an example. Farmers voted him on to the wheat board knowing he wanted to support it, while in the general election picked Ritz as the area’s MP.
“There’s nothing wrong with making major changes, but in all those things, the people who are most affected need to be consulted. And that’s not happening here,” Oberg said.
A vote among farmers held by the board suggested a majority wanted to keep the existing system. Farmers fear they’ll be unable to thrive in a market-driven pricing structure in part because they’ll lose their strength in numbers when it comes to negotiation.
The Conservatives say the results of their poll are flawed. Regardless, their majority in the Commons means the bill will pass.
They have already limited debate on the matter in committee.
The NDP intends to introduce amendments in order to keep arguments going but even it acknowledges the game might be over.
“All partisanship aside, a bill of this economic importance to the Prairie region deserves a thorough analysis and due diligence and scrutiny, so that the public understands it and its impact and gives its approval to it,” said the NDP’s Pat Martin in an interview.
“We’re not getting the time to do that. We’ve spent more time on the gun registry than we have on this six-billion-a-year shift in the way that we market our prime commodities.”
Martin suggested the board was a little late to the political pressure game.
They should have been ringing the alarm bells over the issue for the last five years, he said.
“I’m very disappointed that friends of the wheat board have been late making their opinions known,” he said.
“At this eleventh hour, all we can do is go down swinging.”