Saving The Canadian Wheat Board
Jul 30, 2008
Organized workers know the importance of collective bargaining in their workplaces. But not everyone knows that one of Canada’s biggest, oldest and most stable collective bargaining units is based in the vast grain fields of the Prairies.
That bargaining unit – the Canadian Wheat Board - is now fighting for its life.
Representing some 75,000 grain growers, the Canadian Wheat Board is the largest farm marketing board in the country, handling all western wheat and barley destined for export and human use. The CWB is a real power in the international marketplace, with $5 billion in annual sales, and is 100% self-supporting. Backed by the Canadian Grain Commission’s excellent quality assurance, the Board uses its exclusive “single-desk selling” power to get the best possible prices, transportation rates and quality premiums for its producers. National Farmers Union research shows the Wheat Board is worth $700-800 million annually to farmers, almost $10,000 per farm.
And it’s not just farmers who benefit. A 2005 Price-Waterhouse-Coopers study credited the Board with some 14,000 non-farm jobs, which include transport, administrative and port workers. The CWB moves 20 to 30 million tonnes of grain a year over Canadian rail lines and through Canadian ports – much of it through Prince Rupert and Vancouver – making it one of Canada’s biggest rail shippers and one of our strongest East-West links.
The Board has been doing its job - and doing it well - ever since R.B. Bennett’s Conservative government passed the Canadian Wheat Board Act in 1935. But for years, big American grain interests have been trying to destroy it and grab control of our grain industry for themselves. They would love to add wheat and barley to the list of Canadian resources and jobs leaving Canada for profits elsewhere.
In Stephen Harper, those giant corporations now have an ally. The current Conservative minority government has been using every sneaky and antidemocratic method imaginable to undermine the CWB and betray the farmers and workers who rely on it. They have fired key personnel, tampered with producer voting lists, interfered with director elections, muzzled staff, and spent wads of taxpayer dollars on anti-Board propaganda promoting the fraud of “dual marketing”.
“It’s all about money and control,” says Ken Sigurdson, co-founder of the grassroots “Save My CWB Campaign”, who farms with his family near Swan River, Manitoba. “U.S. agribusiness wants to ‘integrate’ Canada’s grain industry with their own, cherry-pick our prime production. Without the Wheat Board, the big grain companies would totally take over. Farmers would just be just contract growers, restricted to the company’s varieties, their chemicals, their prices and conditions.” No wonder most grain producers continue to support the Board.
Last year, farmers challenged the government’s attempt to remove barley from CWB jurisdiction, and won in the courts. Recently, the Federal Court quashed the government-imposed gag order that prevented the Board from defending its role. A furious Harper vowed that anyone standing in the way of his agenda “is going to get walked over.”
His walking boots include three bills currently on the order paper. Bills C-39, C-46 and C-57 would disenfranchise even more producers, tying the Board up in frivolous arbitration processes, and undermining the Grain Commission’s longstanding mandate to inspect and regulate the grain industry “in the farmers’ interest”.
Harper’s intent couldn’t be clearer. If he wins a majority, the Canadian Wheat Board will be history. Canada’s grain industry, with its associated jobs and economic spin-offs, would go south – literally and figuratively. East-west grain shipments would be seriously impacted, with major hits for communities right across the country. The last round of attacks on Canada’s grain marketing system – repeal of the Crow Rate and Western Grain Transportation Act in the 1980s and ‘90s – had a devastating impact on grain movements through Canadian ports. In Thunder Bay alone shipments fell from 12.9 million tonnes in 1990 to only 5.9 million tonnes in 2006 – a drop of over 50
What would these changes mean? Farmers and workers would be left at the mercy of transnational agribusiness and the railroad companies, who would ship where and when they pleased (the port of Churchill and the Hudson’s Bay Railroad, both highly dependent on CWB shipments, could face bankruptcy, stranding many small northern Manitoba communities). No longer able to count on Canadian grain quality and reliability, our foreign customers would try elsewhere. They – and Canadian consumers - would lose one of their strongest protections against the risks of GMO (genetically modified) wheat. In short, it would spell disaster.
2008 is a critical year for the Wheat Board and the Grain Commission. “We’re fighting hard in the courts and on the hustings to defend our collective bargaining rights and stop Harper from killing the Board,” says Sigurdson. “We’ve got to win the upcoming CWB Director elections, and take crucial swing ridings federally. If workers and farmers work together, we can do it.”
Comments
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I find it hard support a group that will be paid $7B as per the Free Press report today and are carrying over a surplus for the coming year, their appears to be a turf war, pardon the pun, for controls of this organization, perhaps the MGEU could concentrate on the gas issue which is costing its membership lots of money.
Jim Baird - 2008-08-01 15:20
I agree that the CWB is a powerful marketing tool for farmers and believe that it would be a shame to lose that power but in truth I also think that farmers should not be forced to belong to the CWB "Union". As an employee of a company, I do not work to make profit for myself but instead get paid a salary to make profit for the company. In this case it makes sense for me to belong to a union so that I may negotiate my wages en mass with my coworkers. A farmer on the other hand is working for himself and should be entitled to make marketing and selling decisions for himself no matter how misguided his decisions may be. Even a small group of farmers leaving the collective of the CWB will in all likelihood result in the Board's demise and would most likely result in an overall loss of income for farmers, but that's the risk of competition and self employment. Hopefully losing the CWB will result in stiffer competition between farmers fighting to sell their grain, and lower prices for bread and beer. Ultimately though I think it will result in a few more dollars in my pocket as I own shares in Vitera and ADM. Nice thing about that is that I don't have to buy or plant any seed or do any combining or marketing but I still get to reap the benefits.
D McDonald - 2008-08-05 13:22