The
Canadian Wheat Board is not for sale, says the board’s chief strategy officer,
Dayna Spiring.
“I think
there is a misunderstanding about what CWB is trying to do,” she told the
Manitoba Cooperator.
“We’re not
selling the CWB and that’s never been our goal.
“We’ve
said all along we want farmers to play a role in the CWB. “That’s what our
farmer equity is there to do. We want farmers to be a significant shareholder
in the CWB.
“We need
to bring an investor in to partner with farmers to replace the federal
government," she said.
In other words the board wants a new sugar daddy.
Good luck with that!
We’re not selling off the CWB and this is not a sale as anyone
would typically see a sale,” she said.
Nor has
CWB accelerated the privatization process, she said. CWB has long said it wants
to complete the privatization process required under federal legislation sooner
than later.
The
legislation says CWB must present a plan to the agriculture minister by 2016
and privatize or wind up operation by 2017.
Last week,
Farmers of North America (FNA) announced CWB rejected its bid to acquire CWB’s
assets.
FNA wants
to create a majority farmer-owned grain-handling and -marketing company that
also distributes fertilizer, including nitrogen FNA hopes will be produced by
its proposed majority farmer-owned nitrogen-manufacturing company, known as
ProjectN.
Spiring
declined to comment on FNA’s bid.
However,
she said CWB, which is being assisted in the privatization process by Deloitte,
wants to get the best deal it can for farmers.
“We’re
going to make sure we come up with the right plan and do all the due diligence
that we can to assure CWB is a strong and viable organization going forward,”
she said.
