The Western Canadian Wheat Growers Association is calling on the federal government to disregard the results of the Canadian Wheat Board vote, regardless of the outcome, and to move forward quickly with legislation that provides grain marketing freedom to prairie farmers.
The results of the CWB vote will be announced tomorrow. The CWB boasts that ballots were sent to over 68,000 voters, even though Statistics Canada numbers suggest there are no more than 20,000 commercial grain farms in western Canada.
The large number of eligible voters shows that multiple ballots were sent to some farms, and/or a significant number of retired or hobby farmers were allowed to vote.
“The entire design of this vote was geared toward producing a result in favour of the monopoly,” says Kevin Bender, President of the Wheat Growers. “The government should ignore the results and move full steam ahead with plans to give us our marketing freedom.”
Throughout the campaign the Wheat Growers encouraged farmers to boycott the vote. We maintain that every farmer should be free to sell his grain to a buyer of his choice. Whether a farmer decides to market his grain on his own or in co-operation with others should not be subject to the preference of any other farmer.
“Our farm certainly didn’t vote in this bogus exercise,” says Cherilyn Nagel, Past President of the Wheat Growers. “No farmer should have the right to tell another farmer how to market their grain.”
The Wheat Growers note the design of the CWB’s vote was badly flawed, with some farms eligible to obtain several ballots while many bonafide farmers did not receive a ballot, or had to go through a cumbersome process to obtain one. Many farmers, on principle, refused to obtain or mail in a ballot.
The Wheat Growers also note that past CWB surveys have been rigged to under-represent the views of Alberta farmers, where support for marketing choice is highest. It is quite likely that this vote is also skewed, given that the CWB set the eligibility rules and controlled the initial voters list.
“We call on the federal government to disregard this illegitimate vote,” says Bender. “My right to sell my grain should not be undermined by the CWB or the results of its phony plebiscite.”
