Agriculture Committee on May 13th, 2008

[Brian Storseth, Conservative, Westlock—St. Paul, AB]

That all sounds great, Mr. White, but I see this as an opportunity for you to maybe negate some of the rumours that are out there. I'm hearing upwards of $100 million. That seems a little bit more than a surplus and deficit range, or up-and-down volatility. It seems pretty major to me.

[Ian White]

All I can say to you is that rumours are rumours, and that wouldn't be the case.

[Brian Storseth, Conservative, Westlock—St. Paul, AB]

Then it would be your position that it is nowhere near $100 million?

Could some of the volatilities that you talk about in the markets, these losses, be attributed to some of the mistakes made from hedging?

[Ian White]

I wouldn't call them mistakes made from hedging. In fact, I have to say I'm six weeks into this job, and a lot of these things I'm looking back on. We've had a very volatile market, and when we're giving people forward prices—and these are forward prices—you have to understand that they have to be hedged in the futures markets.

The main area or the main liquidity in the futures market is generally the first or second contract position in the futures market. It's not always possible to place hedges in further-out months in the volumes that you would like, so you take some risk. Everybody who offers a farmer a price takes some risk associated with the execution of the hedging of that product, and it would be no different in the case of the Canadian Wheat Board.

We are talking, you have to remember, in very large volumes here, not just small volumes. We are talking very large volumes and very large throughput numbers. The revenue of the Canadian Wheat Board in this year will be somewhere in the order of $5 billion.

[Brian Storseth, Conservative, Westlock—St. Paul, AB]

I'll move on. We will say that $38 million is a lot of money, but we will move on to the last topic I'd like to talk to you about.

Are you familiar with an organization called Friends of the Canadian Wheat Board?

[Ian White]

I'm vaguely familiar with them.

[Brian Storseth, Conservative, Westlock—St. Paul, AB]

Does the Canadian Wheat Board endorse or support this organization?

[Ian White]

I have no idea.

[Brian Storseth, Conservative, Westlock—St. Paul, AB]

So you don't know if the Canadian Wheat Board endorses or supports—

[Ian White]

I don't think they do. I don't think the Canadian Wheat Board endorses any organization.

[Brian Storseth, Conservative, Westlock—St. Paul, AB]

We've been talking a lot about truth in labelling, and one of the things I see here in their little sheet--I'm sure Mr. Easter has a copy he can show too--is that deductions may be tax-deductible. That doesn't really seem like truth in labelling to me when you put something in there that says that deductions may be tax deductible, when in fact through my investigations I've not found that they are a registered charity or would have that capacity.

I was wondering if the Canadian Wheat Board itself has any information or any services that it provides through this organization.

[Ian White]

I'm not aware of anything. I'm not aware of the sheet you're referring to.

[Brian Storseth, Conservative, Westlock—St. Paul, AB]

We'll make sure you get a copy.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Your time has expired, Mr. Storseth.

Mr. Atamanenko.

[Alex Atamanenko, NDP, British Columbia Southern Interior, BC]

Thank you very much. I will be very brief.

I'd just like to congratulate you, Mr. White, on your appointment, and welcome you here.

I'll defer my questions to my honourable colleague, Pat Martin, who is our critic for the Canadian Wheat Board.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Thank you, Alex.

Mr. White, we expect the CEO of the Canadian Wheat Board to be its number one champion, to be its defender, not some saboteur. Believe me, these have been some of the allegations made, or some of the feelings.

You may not be a deregulator or here on a deregulation agenda, but the Prime Minister of Canada and the Minister of Agriculture are obsessed with deregulating the Canadian Wheat Board. It's one of their prime missions of this government. So when you were hand-picked and selected to come here with your past record, you can't blame us for coming to the conclusion that you may be here to cooperate with them.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Mr. Storseth.

[Brian Storseth, Conservative, Westlock—St. Paul, AB]

Point of order, Mr. Chair.

I think we've established that it was the directors of the Canadian Wheat Board who picked Mr. White.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

I just want to remind—

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

I hope this isn't coming out of my time, because this is my time to question.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Right, and I will add some seconds on for you, Mr. Martin.

I will just again remind you that public servants are excused from commenting on policy decisions made by the government. Mr. White is here talking about his management capabilities and responsibilities with the Canadian Wheat Board and not necessarily the policy decisions of the government.

I've added 30 seconds to your time, Mr. Martin.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. White doesn't work for the Government of Canada. Mr. White is the CEO of the Canadian Wheat Board. He's not a public servant. We've established that.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Point of order, Mr. Bellavance?

[André Bellavance, Bloc, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

On a point of order, I would like to tell Mr. Storseth that I have here a government press release. I will read the first sentence:

The Honourable Gerry Ritz, Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food and Minister for the Canadian Wheat Board, today announced the appointment of Ian White as President and Chief Executive Office of the Canadian Wheat Board (CWB).

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

That's a good point, Mr. Bellavance. It does show that he is an appointee of the Government of Canada to the Wheat Board.