Regina, Sask. -
REGINA - RCMP are investigating allegations that Conservative MPs interfered with Canadian Wheat Board director elections, the National Farmers Union said Friday.
The RCMP said in a news release that it's probing complaints from the NFU alleging that a voters list for the wheat board was improperly accessed and used by unauthorized people.
An RCMP spokeswoman would not elaborate, but the union claims Conservative members of Parliament used the voters list to send letters to farmers.
"In the Canadian Wheat Board elections that were run just before Christmas at the end of 2008, five Conservative MPs sent out letters ... telling farmers how to vote and who to vote for," NFU president Stewart Wells said.
"Of course that made farmers in Western Canada very angry."
Wells said that according to the law governing the wheat board, the voters' list is only supposed to be available to candidates in an election.
The farmers union claims that the mailing list used by the MPs was identical to the voters' list.
Wells said none of the explanations offered up as to why there were similarities ring true.
"None of their explanations account for things like typos and company names that are included in these mailing addresses," he said.
"The mailing addresses used by the Conservative MPs includes these typos and these company names that they just really wouldn't have access to any other way."
The letters were sent by one MP from Alberta and four from Saskatchewan, including David Anderson, parliamentary secretary for the Canadian Wheat Board.
They urged farmers to vote for candidates who favour ending the wheat board's grain marketing monopoly.
"To ensure a win for marketing choice, you must rank both candidates that support marketing freedom as your No. 1 and No. 2 choices," wrote Anderson.
Anderson - who used his MP letterhead and free mailing privileges to send the letters - said in November that there's nothing wrong with advocating the election of board members who will work with the government to end the grain marketing monopoly.
The federal NDP called for an ethics investigation into Anderson's use of his parliamentary mailing privileges to influence the election.
Anderson declined to comment on the RCMP probe or the National Farmers Union allegations.
But Anderson said that federal Ethics Commissioner Mary Dawson has ruled against the NDP's call for a probe.
"The ethics commissioner made a decision that she was not going to proceed with an inquiry into a conflict of interest," Anderson said.
"She is having nothing more to do with the issue."
Farmers who support the board's sales monopoly won four of the five seats up for grabs in the election.
