Task force recommends four-stage plan to end wheat board's monopoly

The issue has divided Prairie farmers for years.

Opponents of the board say they want the chance to get better prices on their own, while supporters say the board is the best option in a fiercely competitive international market.

Critics were quick to dismiss the report as unworkable and impractical.

"This task force is certainly not going to create a strong and viable Canadian Wheat Board, and we would suggest the minister just reject it out of hand and come back to the table and start talking with us as to where the grain industry in Canada might go," said board chairman Ken Ritter

The wheat board was invited to sit on the task force, but refused because farmers weren't given enough of a voice.

Ritter says Strahl should have held a farmer plebiscite at the outset, adding the Canadian Wheat Board Act requires a mandate from farmers before the monopoly is removed.

The Manitoba and Saskatchewan governments, along with Liberal and NDP MPs and a coalition of farm groups have joined the board's call for a plebiscite.

Strahl remained non-committal about a referendum Monday, saying some changes could be made by cabinet order and wouldn't require farmer approval.

He says he hopes to hear what farmers think in the coming weeks and months as he visits Prairie provinces.

"I think it's a very good report, very comprehensive," Strahl said in a telephone interview from Ottawa.

"All of this is just advice to the minister. None of it's binding on me, but I think for the first time we can have a good debate now on whether this is the way we can move forward, or not."

Farmers who have lobbied for years to end the board's monopoly applauded the Conservatives' plan to move ahead, but say they need to pick up the pace.

"I'd like to see a time frame as to when this is all going to take place," said John Turcato, a grain farmer from Taber, Alta., who spent 35 days in jail in 2002 for refusing to pay a fine for illegally transporting grain across the Canada-U.S. border.

"I just feel that the Conservative government isn't moving fast enough, or as fast as we'd like to see them move," added Turcato, who will attend a rally in Lethbridge, Alta., on Tuesday to mark the 10th anniversary of the first movement of grain across the border without a wheat board permit.

The report sets out how the new entity it calls "CWB II" would function without its monopoly, such as leaving advocacy to other farm groups, securing significant volumes of grain to sustain foreign and domestic customers, and offering competitive prices to buyers based on low supply chain costs.

The task force proposes several options for implementing the changes, but recommends the Conservatives amend the Canadian Wheat Board Act by next June to officially end the monopoly by July 31, 2008.

The single desk for barley would actually end six months earlier.

Federal Liberal agriculture critic Wayne Easter criticized the task force for not including any economic analysis of the benefits that farmers would see under a revised system.

"We have reached a new low for government task forces because this task force is nothing less than a complete farce," said Easter.

Saskatchewan Agriculture Minister Mark Wartman maintained that the board, without its monopoly, will die.

"The design that they put forward is exactly what we anticipated - it is of another grain company," said Wartman. "And a small grain company with few assets isn't going to last very long in this competitive environment."

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