Welcome back to my column. With the resumption of Parliament and the political issues that have come up in the New Year, its time to return to the issues of the week.

Barley: For those of you who are just getting back from a month or two down south and haven’t heard, a plebiscite is taking place on changes to the Wheat Board involving the marketing of barley.

The barley plebiscite will be only for Western grain farmers. While the NDP and the Liberals want non-farmers to participate (they also wanted 15,000 non-farmers to vote in the CWB elections) the government is only permitting farmers to vote. Anyone who has produced grain in 2006 and barley in at least one of the last five years (2002-2006) will be eligible to vote. Also, farmers who do not meet this criterion but are active farmers can swear an affidavit (explaining that they had planned to produce a grain crop in 2006 but were unable to do so) and still receive a ballot.

The question on the ballot for the barley plebiscite will be:

1.) The Canadian Wheat Board should retain the single desk for the marketing of barley into domestic human consumption and export markets.
2.) I would like the option to market my barley to the Canadian Wheat Board or any other domestic or foreign buyer.
3.) The Canadian Wheat Board should not have a role in the marketing of barley.

As a conservative, I make no apologies for urging people to vote for option 2 or option 3. The Wheat Board has done an awful job of marketing malt barley. (Just compare what you can make now on your feed barley compared to what you can get for malt, which should be at a price premium.) In the end, how barley will be marketed will be decided by farmers–not by CWB bureaucrats or people with a vested interest in making an easy buck off the backs of farmers.

I’m Brad Trost, your Member of Parliament, and I welcome your feedback. Write or call my offices.