As the Harper government moves this week to end all debate in the House of Commons about the Canadian Wheat Board (CWB), further evidence is coming to light about their tactics.
For one thing, in response to a question I asked last September, the Conservatives finally confirmed in writing that they have NOT conducted a single credible study into the impacts, consequences, costs or benefits of killing the CWB’s single-desk marketing system.
They are destroying that system based entirely on ideology and prejudice, not facts or evidence. It’s a foolish way to govern.
Secondly, the government has been caught expropriating up to $200 million in CWB grain marketing revenues. Rather than distributing that money to farmers, where it belongs, the Conservatives quietly passed regulations this fall giving themselves effective control over that cash.
It’s a $200 million slush fund buried inside the Board, but controlled by the government.
What’s going on here? Why are the Conservatives blocking the CWB from paying this money to farmers?
The answer is pretty obvious.
This government knows that killing the Board will be expensive. It will use some of that “stashed cash” to cover severance and other wind-up costs.
And after the existing CWB is thoroughly vandalized, the government wants to maintain the false impression that some “voluntary” alternative will actually continue. So it will use some of this money to prop-up that future entity (for a while).
This is just plain wrong.
The current CWB, with its single-desk system and marketing expertise, earned that money for farmers. Farmers should get it, now! It should not be swiped by the government and used – ironically – to pay for killing the system that earned it.
Make no mistake. The CWB’s defining characteristic is its single-desk. Without it, what’s left is an empty shell, set up to fail!
