Jay Schultz holds newly harvested wheat in his hands as he looks at the quality near Standard, Alberta, September 7, 2014. Photograph by Todd Korol for The Globe and MailTodd Korol/The Globe and Mail
Minds and times can change. When the Conservative government introduced a bill three years ago ending the Canadian Wheat Board as the "single desk" marketer of Canadian wheat and barley, the board vigorously campaigned to preserve its monopoly.
When asked back then by The Globe's editorial board why the CWB could not transform itself into a competitive, privately owned corporation, Allen Oberg, the chair of the CWB, dismissed the idea out of hand, pointing out that it had never been set up to have normal private-sector financial statements. For example, the CWB had never had any retained earnings. It did not ship or store grain; in a sense it really was just a desk. How could it possibly survive?
What was thought to be impossible in 2011 is well on its way to being a reality. The Wheat Board has turned into CWB Ltd. The new entity is slimmer and smaller, yet it has far more in the way of physical assets. It has up-to-date grain elevators, port terminals and a short railway. It did not succumb to large competitors such as Cargill Inc. and Glencore Xstrata PLC.
The government gave the board until 2017 to become a private company; Ian White, the CEO, believes that the process will be complete in 2016. Farmers who deliver grain to CWB will have a right to shares. The company wants other investors to expand its network, and it is already profitable.
It even has the equivalent of a takeover bid in the offing, from Farms and Families of North America Inc., a group with 10,000 members that is planning to build a nitrogen fertilizer plant in Saskatchewan.
A Conservative prime minister, R.B. Bennett, brought the Wheat Board into being in 1935, as part of his New Deal. It was a crisis measure that outlived its time. Today's Conservatives were right to insist on CWB privatization.