WINNIPEG - A second elected farmer representative has resigned from the Canadian Wheat Board over the fight to preserve its monopoly.
"The current board hasn't been listening to producers," Jeff Nielsen, who farms near Olds, Alta., said Monday.
"They want to see things move on. They're running businesses. Their farms are needing of new opportunities and new chances to make their businesses profitable."
Last week, Henry Vos, one of three farmer-elected directors currently from Alberta, resigned his seat over board chairman Allen Oberg's refusal to bow before the wishes of Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz and the federal Conservative government.
It leaves Oberg, who is from Forestburg, Alta., plus seven other directors from Saskatchewan and Manitoba, as the last farmer-elected representatives. There are also four appointed directors and the president.
The board has already voted to proceed with a legal challenge of proposed federal legislation tabled as Bill C-18, which the board claims is illegally stripping it of its powers.
Ritz wants the new system in place by next summer when the new crop year begins.
Oberg has said it would take more time for the government legally to do what it wants.
Under the current Canadian Wheat Board Act, a plebiscite is required before the minister can remove grain from the marketer's control. The government has refused to hold one and has ignored the results of a vote held by the wheat board this past summer, when farmers supported retaining the monopoly over western Canadian wheat and barley.
While Alberta has long supported eliminating the monopoly, Nielsen said he's also getting more calls from Saskatchewan and Manitoba lately.
"Farmers are frustrated."
He also said the board was told the chances of blocking the government were slim to none.
"At the end of the day this will get through," he said.
"Why would we want to continually try to challenge that, as anything that we spend legal-wise has to come out of farmers pockets?"
The Winnipeg-based marketing agency has controlled the sale of western wheat and barley for more than 60 years. It also once controlled the sale of oats, but lost that grain under a previous Conservative government.
After that, the addition of farmer-elected directors and the requirement for a plebiscite were supposed to ensure that producer wishes were respected whenever decisions were made about the wheat board.
The government says the fact that Conservatives won most of the agricultural ridings in Western Canada in the last federal election is enough indication of farmers' wishes.
There are three current or pending court cases over the federal move -- the one filed by the wheat board, another filed earlier by a group called Friends of the Canadian Wheat Board and a third promised by the Western Canadian Wheat Growers, aimed at stopping the board's legal challenge.
