Agriculture Committee on May 13th, 2008

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. White is not a stooge for the Minister of Agriculture. He says he's not here to destroy this great prairie institution, and he wasn't sent here with a mission.

I'd like to ask you two very specific short-answer questions, and I'll remind you that you're under oath, Mr. White.

[Ian White]

Am I under oath?

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

You are under oath at a parliamentary committee.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

We never told him he had to appear under oath.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

You are under oath, whether you swore an oath or not, and are subject to the same perjury provisions, etc., as in a court of law.

Do you or do you not believe that the single-desk monopoly for marketing Canadian grains is in the best interests of Canadian farmers?

Second, do you believe that there can be such a thing as a voluntary Canadian Wheat Board, that such a voluntary Wheat Board would be viable as per the plebiscite question that was sent around to barley growers?

Those are my two questions. And could you be brief? We have very little time.

[Ian White]

With regard to single-desk selling, I have run single-desk operations in the past, and I have to say that in the right market circumstances, the concept of a single seller rather than multiple sellers to a market makes ultimate sense. That's a theory, and from my point of view, I can see the sense in that. That's the way the Canadian Wheat Board is at the present time. I support the concept of single-desk selling. But we have to be able to demonstrate it, ultimately, because it's the farmers of western Canada who will, I hope, ultimately decide whether they want this or not. One of my roles is to demonstrate to them the value of the single desk.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

You should be the champion of the single desk, because that's what you were hired to do.

[Ian White]

That's the policy of the board of directors.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

You're duty-bound to uphold that as the CEO, right?

[Ian White]

That's correct. But at the end of the day, what I believe is important is to make sure that the marketing system we have in the future, not the marketing system we have today, adds value. So that's what I'll be looking at. I'll be trying to make sure that the single-desk selling system we have adds value, and I'll be looking to demonstrate that in terms of the way we operate.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Second, do you believe that there can be such a thing as a viable, voluntary CWB, or is its universality its strength?

[Ian White]

I think its universality is mainly its strength. I think it's problematic with regard to whether there can be a dual marketing system or a choice system and what the role of the CWB might be in that. That's something I think we still need to have a good look at and discover. I think there might be circumstances in which that might be reasonable.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Has any government official ever asked you to consider that as part of your mandate?

[Ian White]

I have not been asked to make it part of my mandate, no.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Have you been asked if it is part of your personal background and personal beliefs?

[Ian White]

No.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

So no government official has ever raised the idea of how you feel about dual marketing versus a single desk?

[Ian White]

No.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Thank you, Mr. Martin.

We'll go to Mr. Steckle.

[Paul Steckle, Liberal, Huron—Bruce, ON]

Thank you.

Mr. White, it's my first opportunity to meet you. I guess some of the members around the table met you previously, but this is my first opportunity.

I have been around this table for a long time, and have met various CEOs of the Wheat Board over my 15 years in attendance here. I look at your résumé and where you've come from, and you indicate in your résumé that you worked in Canada for a number of years some years ago. So you had some knowledge of the Wheat Board's purpose, the reason for it being there, and how it has served Canadian agriculture, particularly our wheat farmers and barley growers, over the last many years. You came here with some sort of background knowledge about the Wheat Board.

In coming here, obviously, you knew that some issues were going to face you. You came, I suppose, with some degree of trepidation, knowing that you were going to probably face some difficulties in some areas. Now that you have been in your job for six weeks and have heard some of the things mentioned this morning, which obviously were not new to you--you were expecting it, I'm sure--do you feel positive about the future of the Wheat Board? Because in the world, we have become known as the best marketers of the best product. Later this morning we're going to be talking about KVD. If we lose some of that identification and the ability to sell and guarantee that kind of quality, something goes with it, and that's our image.

If we lost the Wheat Board, could grain companies themselves do what the Wheat Board is doing today in terms of handling the large contracts? We have countries buying huge volumes of wheat. There's the financing of that and holding credit lines for those kinds of things. The Wheat Board changed its mandate about ten years ago. We now have farmer involvement. I would have to think that single-desk selling is still the best option. We have it in various other sectors in my province of Ontario--in the hog industry, in the white bean industry. We know it works. I was there when it wasn't done, and it didn't work very well.

How do you see yourself going forward with the challenges we've talked about this morning? And how do you work your way through this maze? What arguments can you come back with to assure us that the Wheat Board, going forward, unless there's government intervention or farmers decide to change course...? How do you see the Wheat Board functioning in the future?

[Ian White]

There's a lot in the question you've asked.

First, I came here understanding a reasonable amount about the issues here, but you can never understand those issues fully until you're on the ground and working through them. So I'm still in the process of working through those, to some extent.

As I said previously, I think the idea of single selling, of the single sales channel, is a good one, but you just can't assume that's the model for everything. It does depend on the market you're in, the customer base, and the arrangements you have. There's no question that the Canadian Wheat Board and the sale of Canadian grain, particularly internationally, has been aided by the ability to keep the product together and keep the consistent quality and the high level of that consistency together. In my view, there's no doubt that's been a very good arrangement, particularly in those products where the customer is very interested in quality, and that would be in some particular areas, wheat, malt, barley, etc.

I work for the board of directors of the Canadian Wheat Board, and as the president of the Canadian Wheat Board I'll be looking to chart the best future I can for the organization. As an organization we need to look at what the long-term plans for the organization are and we need to be able to contemplate what they might be. To some extent, there's no question that is a negotiation with government, because it controls the act and it controls the future of the Canadian Wheat Board in that sense.

It's not an easy task, and some people have asked me why I took it on. All I can say is that while it seemed to me a difficult task, and I'm finding out how difficult that is as I go through this, I felt it was one that my background and my experience in running single-desk organizations, in being involved in deregulation to some extent--but the learning is from that, not the model that's associated with that, necessarily--might be useful for me in terms of helping the Canadian Wheat Board and the government, and the industry in a sense, work through these issues, as we have to do.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Thank you, Mr. White. Time has expired.

Mr. Tweed, you have the floor for five minutes.

[Merv Tweed, Conservative, Brandon—Souris, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Welcome back to Canada. And I certainly accept that your challenges are great, as you're dealing with it.

I'm sitting in on the committee for the first time today, particularly on the Wheat Board issue, but I find it very interesting that the discussion I've heard so far would be that several members of Parliament would choose to support an institution ahead of the people they're actually there to serve. I appreciate your comments when you state that we all have to have an open mind. Our opportunity and our job are to serve the farmer, and I think your comments today are very good. And I congratulate you in your new mandate as the head of the Canadian Wheat Board.

I think it is important to note that, because I find it quite interesting that the members from Ontario would fight so hard for an institution that only supports western Canadian farmers, and why they wouldn't want to open up the Wheat Board's jurisdiction to encompass all the Canadian farm economy. Would you see that as any part of your mandate in the sense of expanding the Wheat Board to include all of Canada, as opposed to just western Canada?

[Ian White]

I haven't really contemplated that at all, I've got to say. Our current mandate is for western Canadian wheat and barley, and I suppose that's something that, if it were contemplated, the board of directors would look at.

My role is to see a strong Canadian Wheat Board that is effective into the future and in marketing, however it's deemed that it should market. I would agree with you that the farmers, at the end of the day, are our servants, and that what we need to be doing is finding the best ways to add value to them. I suppose I can't say much more than that.