News Articles

June 5, 2008
Winnipeg Free Press
By Mia Rabson

CWB's barley monopoly to survive another year

OTTAWA -- The Canadian Wheat Board's monopoly on barley sales will survive at least one more season.

The government Tuesday made the rare move of asking for the legislation to go straight to committee, which opposition MPs say is a sign the government isn't willing to make this a confidence matter and risk an election over it.

The committee also won't have a chance to deal with the issue before Parliament rises for the summer, which could happen as early as next week, and no later than June 20.

Parliament doesn't resume until mid-September which means most barley sales would be completed long before the bill has a chance to pass. And Winnipeg MP and NDP wheat board critic Pat Martin said he predicts this is a signal the bill will never go forward.

"This Wheat Board thing is done like dinner," he said. "We win, they lose."

In March, Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz introduced the legislation, which would allow prairie barley farmers to decide on their own whether to sell their grain through the wheat board or not.

But it has sat idle ever since.

This week Ritz gave notice he intends to send this bill, and another one altering who gets to vote for CWB directors, to the house agriculture committee before it undergoes second reading in the House of Commons.

Normally, second reading - where MPs from all parties can debate the bill's merits - comes first.

Ritz said he is doing that because he knows the opposition have said they plan to stall the bill.

"Opposition parties have made it clear they're going to do everything they can to delay these key pieces of legislation in the House of Commons," Ritz said in a written statement provided to the Free Press. "That's why this Government is pulling out all the stops by sending this legislation directly committee to give Western Canadian barley producers the freedom they have demanded."

But Liberal House Leader Ralph Goodale says Ritz is clearly backing away from the legislation.

© Winnipeg Free Press

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