Egg Farmers of Ontario has decided to end closed-door sessions during its annual general meeting in Toronto March 26 and 27 at the Marriott Airport Hotel in Mississauga.
But a check with Chicken Farmers of Ontario indicates their leaders intend to once again bar reporters from the annual general meeting March 12 at the Delta Hotel in Mississauga.
The chicken board says it will send out a news release about the meeting about a week after the meeting, and also post it on the board's website. That, of course, means they will censor anything that's said during the meeting that the brass don't want the public to know.
Scott Graham, chairman of Egg Farmers of Canada, told a recent meeting of producers at Shakespeare that the government is demanding that the board be more transparent, especially over issues such as pricing and quota allocations.
Maybe that's a reflection of pressure on the Ontario Farm Products Marketing Commission to conduct an inquiry into the policies and operations of the egg board.
The commission would be well advised to conduct a similar and public inquiry into why the chicken board has made a deal with Quebec to defy the premiers' agreement to dismantle inter-provincial trade barriers and the failure to supply chicken to CAMI International Poultry Inc. at Welland.
It seems to me that the commission should also consider putting some fresh staff member in charge of relations with the poultry marketing boards. The person who has been in charge seems to be a rather ineffective watchdog on behalf of the Ontario public.
