Ask the farmers what they want

Imagine, after 32 years, being fired by a man who won't even talk to you.
That's what happened to Wheat Board president Adrian Measner:

Measner said [Agriculture minister Chuck] Strahl never spoke with him directly about his firing. "It isn't a very professional way to operate, but it is the method of operation that the minister has chosen," he said from his home near Winnipeg.

Now we'll see whether Strahl, who has never been a farmer, is also afraid to seek farmer opinion about ending the Wheat Board marketing monopoly. Will he hold a plebicite -- or if he is so ideologically driven that he doesn't care what the grain farmers want?
Here's another surprising quote from this story:

Carl Siemens, who grows grains and oilseeds near Rush Lake, Sask., said Tuesday's announcement could cost the Conservatives votes in the next election. "Although a goodly number of (farmers) actually voted for the Conservative government in the last federal election, they did so with no knowledge that this government was going to move in this fashion to remove the Canadian Wheat Board," he said.

Have they been living in caves? Why would any farmer not know already that the Conservatives wanted to dump the Wheat Board? They're been talking about it for years.
Of course, maybe they just assumed that the Conservatives wouldn't dare do such a thing without a producer vote.