Sask Wheat Pool: Outraged I Tell You!

“Take that back right now!”

The Canadian Wheat Board is demanding a retraction from Saskatchewan MP David Anderson for comments he made in the House of Commons.
Last Friday, Conservative MP David Anderson stood in the House of Commons and accused the Wheat Board of illegal and corrupt practices in respect to a sale by the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool into Iraq’s oil-for-food program.
“This directly affects Canadians because 30 per cent of the value of the contract disappeared through shipping delays and what are referred to as transfers to other buyers, whatever they are. That sounds like even more corruption,” Anderson said. “How did the Wheat Board and its exporters manage to lose $8 million out of a $23 million illegal deal with Iraq?”
Wheat Board spokeswoman Louise Waldman says there is no basis to the allegations, which Anderson has declined to repeat outside the House of Commons. By law, MPs cannot be sued for anything they say inside Parliament.
The Wheat Board has asked Anderson to retract the comments. Waldman says as a marketing agency, the board has two things going for it: its product and its reputation.
“We have an extremely high-quality product, and we also have an extremely good reputation,” she says. “We’re viewed as having a lot of integrity in the international grain business, and our salespeople are extremely well-respected. So we felt that Mr. Anderson’s comments threatened or damaged, could have damaged, this reputation.”
A spokesperson for Anderson says the MP has not seen the Wheat Board’s news release and will not be commenting on it. However, Waldman says Anderson is aware of the board’s concerns.
“Our CEO phoned him yesterday to speak to him personally on this and we will be following this up with a letter to him this week,” she says. Anderson has not indicated whether he will retract his comments. Waldman says if Anderson refuses to make a retraction, the Wheat Board will publish the letter it sent to him.

No mention of whether any letters have been sent to the US Congressional Committee investigating oil-for-food that flagged over $23 million in payments to the Wheat Pool channeled improperly through third parties or their banks.