OTTAWA - The federal Liberals are challenging the Conservative government's plan to end the Canadian Wheat Board's monopoly on sales of western wheat and barley.
Liberal Ralph Goodale has introduced a private member's bill that he says will give grain producers more control over the board.
The proposed legislation would increase the influence farmers have in choosing board directors and limit the government's authority to give orders to the board.
Goodale says the changes are necessary because the government is on what he calls an "incessant campaign to destroy" the wheat board.
The Conservative government and the wheat board have been at war since the Tories took office in 2006 on a platform that included eliminating the board's single-desk selling power.
The government says it wants to give farmers more leeway to cut their own deals.
Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz issued a statement Wednesday saying that if the Liberals cared about democracy they would help the government pass legislation to make sure real farmers are the ones voting in directors elections.
"It's amazing to see that Mr. Goodale is finally admitting that the legislation he wrote as minister has failed farmers, and a decade later he still doesn't understand agriculture," said Ritz.
"It's unfortunate that the Liberals still won't admit that their legislation's biggest flaw is that it continues to shackle Western farmers to the unfair monopoly."
