© AgMedia Inc.
by BETTER FARMING STAFF
Representatives of Ontario Wheat Producers’ Marketing Board’s District 10 threw down the gauntlet Thursday night. They threaten to withdraw from the board if chair David Whaley doesn’t meet with them next week to address their concerns.
Representatives from many county committees in the eastern Ontario district, meeting in Winchester, voted unanimously to call for a meeting with Whaley on June 11, says John Vanderspank, the district’s controversial director on the provincial board.
“Please respect our request to fully reinstate John Vanderspank as elected or satisfactorily address our concerns,” states a letter sent to Whaley at 8:30 Friday morning. “Failure to do so will result in District 10 withdrawing” from the provincial board, said the letter, signed by delegates and executives for wheat committees in Glengarry, Dundas, Lanark/Carleton, Frontenac/Leeds/Grenville, Renfrew and Prescott.
Whaley says he will decide whether to attend the meeting after he receives the formal notice. He had not yet received it when interviewed before 9:30 a.m. on Friday morning.
While the flash point is the partial suspension of district 10 director John Vanderspank, Lanark, at the board’s May meeting, a long list of grievances is cited.
Vanderspank says among the District 10 representatives’ concerns are:
- Lack of access to the actual cost of production numbers to calculate the support needed for a proposed grains and oilseeds risk management;
- Why the board won’t help other boards fund the purchase of a combine for a research station in Kemptville;
- The legality of the non-confidence resolution concerning Vanderspank;
- Giving producer information without permission to OnTrace, a provincial organization addressing food traceability;
- Lack of grain storage capacity in eastern Ontario;
- The board’s actions concerning the payout for protein on hard red spring wheat;
- The future of wheat research in eastern Ontario.
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Vanderspank says the district set a deadline of June 16, the provincial board’s next meeting, for the terms to be met and for his reinstatement.
A resolution passed at the wheat board’s May meeting bans Vanderspank, in his second term as a board director, from confidential portions of board meetings and all committee work.
The partial suspension resulted from an article Vanderspank wrote in an eastern Ontario publication. Whaley says it revealed confidential information.
“You’ve got a fellow here who every time he doesn’t get his way at a board meeting, he runs to the media,” Whaley says. “A board can’t function like that.”
He says Vanderspank’s reputation as a radical activist “got to the board before he did.” Vanderspank is a founding member of the Lanark Landowners Association. Nevertheless, Whaley says the board gave Vanderspank “every chance to belong.”
“He has chosen not to (belong).”
“This whole contention that we’ve all of a sudden pulled out the axe and chopped this guy’s head off is untrue,” says Whaley. “I guess we’re just the villains.”
Vanderspank says the district’s action sends a message to the Grain Growers of Ontario (the new amalgamated wheat, corn and soy producer board takes effect this fall). “Eastern Ontario wants their director to represent them and to be heard and we want more openness with the board.”
Vanderspank says district members have “no idea” how they would operate outside the board but “if we don’t do something, they’re just going to shuffle this to the bottom of the pile and hope it goes away.”
The district includes counties east of Kingston and “the rest of Ontario not included in Districts 1-9,” says the board’s website. According to the wheat board, there are about 488 wheat producers in the district and 17,000 wheat producers in the province. BF
Comments
It sounds like the Wheat Board does not want to get to know the Eastern Ontario wheat producers at all. We must be second class(but fully paying) members.
I would have thought that he would have welcomed the chance to speak to the District and explain everything the board has done and will do for Eastern Ontario.
It must be a short list.
It is about time the board had a wakeup call .After 2008 crop year with all the problems in the spring wheat and the board did nothing about it .I had called the board about the Ergot and they told me they had discussed it around coffee heard but knew nothing in detail about it.Does the board track how much wheat is received in each class and how much is sold in each class.I would not say any elevator would blend good wheat with bad but?Perhaps it is a good time for the growers to pull out of the system that is not working.
“This whole contention that we’ve all of a sudden pulled out the axe and chopped this guy’s head off is untrue,” says Whaley. “I guess we’re just the villains.”
Sounds like the bully who has been caught and is now playing the part of the martyr. Big difference between a hero and a martyr and there is nothing attractive about a martyr.
For shame the Western Ontario Wheat Board wants the money from the east but then bullies their opinion or plays the martyr card.
(Martyrs) They are often not so alive and most often do not have the support of their people.
While John Vanderspank may, indeed, be a "radical activist", those of us who came of age during the sixties find it difficult, by definition, and by experience, to fault anyone so described.
Furthermore, it seems to me that Vanderspank is taking issue solely with Wheat Board policies, and as any activist knows, policy issues are entirely fair game to be "outed" in order to be analyzed, and discussed, in a more public way than what might otherwise happen.
If Vanderspank was taking public issue with the personal competency of any fellow Board member (or Board employee) then he'd clearly be over the line, but policy issues are fair game. It's too bad the Board seems to feel differently.
Maybe time the board had a swift kick in the ass.After the fiasco of 2008 of spring wheat with Ergot and fusarium and the board did nothing but collect fees.Does the board track grades of wheat and account when it is sold.If a 10,000t of feed wheat is received is 10,000t sold?I would not think an elevator would blend good wheat with bad but?I would like to here from some growers in eastern Ontario.Good to see a director stand up for those he represents.
Rick Wallace 519-925-0661 519-939-6259
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