FAST FACTS - Attack on Wheat Board Exposes Authoritarian Predisposition of Harper Government

In Alberta, the real provincial elec- Part of the Harper attack was a Ministerial order tion is now being debated within the confines of the attempting to rig the election by removing almost Conservative Party leadership contest to replace 40% of the organization’s members from automati- Ralph Klein. [...] Worse, the Minister deliber- Alberta any elected opposition members of the ately issued the order in the middle of the election Legislature are banned from all Government com- so the organization’s members had to incur addi- mittees. [...] from within? The object of this attack is none other than the Canadian Wheat Board (CWB), the market- The target of this attack, an organization 100% ing arm of the wheat and barley producers of west- funded and democratically controlled by its mem- ern Canada, the organization that enables farmers Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives-MB to have some power in the global grain market. [...] These farmers know that the Wheat Board is the only protection they have for their livelihoods and For years the Alberta Government and the private their communities from the predatory practices of the grain trade have insisted that they don’t want to bury transnational grain companies. [...] If they vote true to form, Prime Minis- ter Harper and his supine Agriculture Minister can The Harper government has even stooped to delay- expect a stern rebuke in the form of a slate of farmer ing approval of payments to farmers of their own directors ready to defend the CWB.