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Canadian Wheat Board prepares for corporate takeover

Dec. 1, 2014 - Farmers and Canadian taxpayers will soon be completely free of the wheat board's assets — but not with a conventional sale.

Under a sort of reverse-nationalization plan now taking shape behind closed doors, a private-sector investor will assume control without reimbursing the federal treasury for assets Canadians paid for, or at least indirectly financed.

2011's Marketing Freedom for Grain Farmers Act gave a revamped wheat board — purged of farmer-elected directors and now run by a board of Harper government appointees — until 2016 to come up with a privatization plan and until 2017 to implement it. Otherwise, it will be dissolved.

The board's website says it is "fast-tracking" and "intends to beat that deadline."

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