Wheat Board fires official who criticized government
WINNIPEG — A Canadian Wheat Board vice-president who was an outspoken critic of the Harper government's tactics in its dealings with the marketing agency was sacked yesterday.
Deanna Allen, the board's vice-president of farmer relations and public affairs, had been a thorn in the side of the government as it attempted to end the Wheat Board's barley-marketing monopoly.
Ms. Allen said in an interview late yesterday that she was “dismissed without cause” by Wheat Board interim president Greg Arason.
“I was told that Greg had just come in from an in camera session with the board and that he was to inform me that I was dismissed effective immediately,” she said.
The news “came as a bit of a shock,” she said, adding she had no idea that her dismissal was imminent.
Interestingly, the federal government cannot directly hire or fire members or staff of the wheat board - only the appointed members of its board and it's President, which they did a year ago when they replaced the uncooperative Adrian Measner with interim president Greg Arason. Happily for them, Mr. Arason is considerably more cooperative with the government's agenda of eliminating the Wheat Board, as he has just demonstrated by firing Allen.
Even more cooperation is expected from the government's newly announced permanent replacement for Measner - Australian agri-business executive Ian White.
Buckdog knows a lot more about all this than I, so I recommend that you wander over to his joint and continue reading there.
And on a somewhat unrelated topic, please read this editorial by Dan Gardner on the increasingly Orwellian atmosphere in Ottawa. ADD: And this one by Randall Denley. Brrrr!
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