The Canadian Wheat Board (CWB) recently released the results of its plebiscite. While the results of the CWB plebiscite certainly warrant consideration, the results do not carry the weight that has been assigned to them by the CWB. Furthermore, the results to not accurately reflect the opinion of “the majority of farmers” that a number of media outlets have continued to report.
First, the plebiscite was designed and conducted by the CWB. The CWB is not a union, a trade association or a lobby group for farmers: it is a legislated marketing monopoly. It is not the voice of farmers, nor does it represent them in any legal or political sense beyond its legislated role as a grain marketer. The CWB’s primary concern is its own preservation. This was evident in the CWB’s broadly inclusive definition of eligible voters, that provided a vote to anyone who had made a delivery to the CWB in the preceding five years, and which included: “… as well as an actual producer, any person entitled, as landlord, vendor or mortgagee, to the grain grown by an actual producer or to any share therein.”
As an example, this definition includes one of my relatives. She lives in the city and has lived in the city for several decades. She has a profession unrelated to farming. She inherited a quarter section of land from her family many years ago. She leased it to a producer on a crop-share basis and, certainly, some deliveries to the CWB would have been made under her name. She was entitled to vote in the CWB plebiscite, despite that her livelihood is entirely unrelated to the production or marketing of wheat or barley. Reason suggests that many of these small “producers” are the most likely to support the CWB, which, regardless of its economic merits, makes selling grain simple for those less inclined to involve themselves in the true business of agriculture. It is not likely coincidence that the CWB cast its net to include as many of these “producers” as possible.
Looking to the ballot, the CWB did not present a choice to voters that accurately reflects the government’s intended action on the CWB. The government intends to remove the CWB’s monopoly, but has committed to maintaining the CWB as a viable marketing agency for those who wish to use it. The two options on the CWB ballot asked the voter if he wished to:
a) “maintain the ability to market all wheat (barley)… through the single desk system”; or
b) “remove the single desk marketing system and sell ALL WHEAT (barley) through an open market system” (my emphasis added).
The government’s proposal is to eliminate the single desk system, but to maintain the CWB as a marketing option. The language on the ballot implies that there will be no CWB option if the farmer chooses to remove the single desk. The language of the pro-CWB option is also worded in an affirmative fashion, asking voters if they wish to “maintain the ability to market…” The current system is a legislated monopoly imposed on all wheat and barley producers in western Canada. It is not a circumstance in which producers are “maintaining an ability” to market through the CWB. This language implies producers, in marketing through the CWB, are exercising choice. The idea of choice is entirely contrary to the legislated mandate of the CWB. A more objective question would have simply asked whether the voter supports the single desk marketing system, or opposes the single desk marketing system. No more words were required.
Furthermore, of the designated eligible voters, only 55% of eligible wheat producers, and 47% of eligible barley producers participated in the vote. In the case of barley “producers”, only 51% of those who voted favoured the single desk system: this is hardly a majority to begin with. Of the wheat “producers” who voted, roughly 62% favoured the single desk system. However, since only 55% and 47% of eligible voters participated, the 62% and 51% majorities in the plebiscite results actually reflect the opinions of roughly 34% and 24% of CWB defined “producers”, some of whom are not actively engaged in production or marketing of grain. This hardly resembles support from “the strong majority of farmers” the CWB continues to espouse. Arithmetic suggests it does not even resemble the opinion of a majority.
The CWB has attempted to cast the shadow of the overall voter participation rate of 56% as being “on par with the last three federal elections and higher than many municipal and provincial elections”. In this effort, the CWB has attempted to suggest that its plebiscite results should carry the same weight as actual election results. This represents a significant inflation of the CWB’s mandate. Our electoral system is the very foundation of our democracy, and is comprised of a number of legally binding laws, rules, regulations and customs that have been designed and are monitored by trained professionals and have been honed and developed through more than a century of experience. This CWB plebiscite has no legal effect: it was, without question, a “straw poll” that was designed, marketed and executed by the very organization that was relying on its results.
If you visit the CWB web page today, you will find that, contrary to its actual mandate, which is the effective marketing of wheat and barley, most of the CWB effort is directed toward conducting this plebiscite, helping to organize “farmer meetings”, circulating petitions in favour of its continuation, and generally, convincing voters, the general public and politicians that the CWB is necessary. Self-preservation and self-promotion seems to have become the CWB’s raison d’etre. How much money, and how many employee resources has the CWB dedicated to self-promotion and self-preservation? Advertising, legal battles, organizing support and, now, conducting and marketing the results of its plebiscite. It will have consumed millions of producers’ dollars. When a government agencies primary focus becomes self-preservation, it deserves significant scrutiny. If the CWB was truly as effective and financially beneficial to producers as it purports to be, it would not be subject to its current scrutiny.
Every successful politician understands one thing, beyond all others: getting the vote. Certain media personalities and CWB supporters are now busy casting aspersions on the Minister of Agriculture, Gerry Ritz, and the Conservative government, that they are ignoring the will of farmers. Inherent in their aspersions is the assumption that the Conservative Party, a veritable campaign machine fueled by slow, consistent and measured gains over a number of years, is jeopardizing its core support in the heartland of modern Canadian conservatism. Please—don’t be naïve. The Conservatives campaigned on eliminating the CWB from the start, and their support only grew on the prairies, especially among rural farming communities. The Conservatives know their voters. Perhaps they know something the CWB refuses to recognize about that 60%-70% of eligible producers who either voted against the CWB monopoly, or refused to participate in the CWB’s plebiscite.
To suggest that the elimination of the CWB monopoly is some personal ideological crusade launched by Harper and Ritz, without the support of their western farm voters, is not rational. If blind free-market ideology was at play, the worst offenders in Canadian agriculture are the dairy, poultry and egg industries, not the CWB. Of course, it’s not advisable, from a political perspective, to turn your guns on those supply-managed industries when they enjoy tremendous support in southern Ontario and Quebec: a place the Conservatives wish to curry favour. Although free-market ideology may be informing the government’s decision to end the CWB monopoly (ideological perspective informs most government actions at some level), it’s an ideology that, from the government’s standpoint, the majority of its prairie farm voters share. Based on the CWB’s plebiscite results, and the Conservative’s election record, I suspect they’re right.
