Expect Wheat Board changes: vote winners

Fresh off Monday's Conservative electoral win, Manitoba and Saskatchewan politicians are talking about changes to the Canadian Wheat Board which would give farmers more grain marketing options.

In Manitoba, Candice Hoeppner, who won re-election in the riding ofPortage-Lisgar, said she expects thenew majority government will move forward with plans to limit the board's monopoly on grain marketing, and give farmers the option of marketing grain outside the board.

"I'm not sure what's going to happen as we move ahead," said Hoeppner. "But ultimately it's the farmers and the wheat growers of western Canada who should be deciding that," she said.

"I can tell you in my riding a lot of farmers, all they're asking for is the choice. They don't want to end the monopoly.

Similar comments were made Monday night by Saskatoon-Rosetown-Biggar's Kelly Block, who held on to her seat for the Conservatives.

"We have said what we want to offer farmers is choice," Block said. "That's what we're going to work towards is offering farmers a choice. Whether it's single desk, or marketing their grain on their own."

Block's opponent, NDP challenger Nettie Wiebe, was more blunt in her prediction for the future of the Canadian Wheat Board under a Conservative majority.

"The Conservatives have made no secret of it," Wiebe said Monday night. "They want the wheat board gone and I think they will set about it: Destroying the wheat board."

Hoeppner pointed out that before election there was a private member's bill that would have allowed farmers to opt out of the board's marketing regime.

"Farmers could let the wheat board know, give them a time span where they would like to opt out and that would give the wheat board the opportunity to know who's in and who's out," Hoeppner said, adding she liked that approach.

"I think that at the end of the day farmers should decide how and where they sell their wheat. And that's something that we definitely do support."