Alberta Beef Producers (ABP) are staying on as a member of the Canadian Cattle Association (CCA) for now.
It was announced Wednesday an Interim Participation Agreement was reached.
Under the agreement, ABP will provide gap funding for the national organization from July 1st to August 31st as well as stay involved in meetings and discussions, but as a non-member under the current governance structure.
President of CCA Tyler Fulton says the agreement shows talks with ABP are moving in the right direction, but there are things that still need to be addressed prior the CCA's Semi-Annual meeting in August.
Fulton noted eight or nine resolutions were passed at their AGM in March to start this process. The resolutions address the structure of governance, acknowledge the need for a finance chair and committee to address the funding related issues, and better communication at all levels.
He says details on the new governance structure are being worked on with assistance from provincial cattle groups, including ABP. From there, the CCA Board will vote on the recommended changes made by the governance committee, then the provincial members will vote on it at the Semi-Annual meeting.
"It’s our expectation, I think, that sometime over the following three months or so, ABP will have a special delegate meeting where they will put these changes to their delegate body to vote on. Assuming that that was passed and successful, then implementation of the new structure would start in March of 2027." Fulton hopes.
Fulton commends the provincial groups for being actively involved in the process.
"It’s been very good in terms of the amount of engagement across the country, and I think really everybody feels, you know, all the provinces are seeing opportunities for improvement. That’s the goal, I think. We’re an organization that’s been in place for 94 years, and from time to time, you need to evolve and make changes to your structure so that you can remain effective." he said.
Fulton calls the interim agreement "a necessary measure" in order to progress forward.
Alberta Beef Producers' POV
As mentioned, the interim agreement signed gives all parties involved more time to address areas of concern for ABP.
Main points of concern boil down to three areas: funding, representation from Alberta, and communication from the top down to the grassroots level and vice versa.
And as Chair of ABP Doug Roxburgh explains, they realized the process was much more complex than their initial three concerns.
"When we got together with the nine member provinces and spent some time over the last number of months, both in-person meetings and online, starting to break apart the structure of CCA, the ideas that came out of the nine provinces which make up the Canadian Cattle Association started to be a lot larger than simply the three asks that came out of Alberta. And so some of the structural changes were a lot more in-depth than we were maybe even anticipating when we started this journey.
And because of that, it creates some timeline constraints just in the sense that there's bylaws that need to be adjusted. There's changes to the governance of things that how CCA operates. And it's all in a positive direction so far. Now it's just working through some of the implementation side of it." Roxburgh said.
A key part of the agreement is ABP staying involved, but as a non-member. Roxburgh says it's a niche part of the deal to say they're involved but from a distance.
"It was just to make sure that people understood that Alberta Beef Producers with the extension to the agreement would have the ability to be part of the voting process in the implementation of the structure moving forward but identified us as being not a member at this exact period just so that it went properly on record as we navigated through this period.
It was more just maybe a nuance that everybody understood that ABP was financially contributing to CCA. There was an agreement that we could be part of the conversation and the voting but just identified that we weren't truly back as a member of this association until we allowed the delegates and Directors of Alberta Beef Producers to actually form that final vote to make the decision to come back in."
He adds this also gives them time to have meetings with producers and communicate what's happening. where they're at, and how things are looking moving forward.
Asked what feedback they've received from producers, Roxburgh says some are for it and some are against it.
"I would say right from the day that the withdrawal was announced, we had parties on both sides of the equation. People that were in favour of the withdrawal and people that were dead set against it. I think it was really important to communicate to both sides that change was needed and it needed to be done in a structural way that allowed CCA to progress and move forward into the future." he said.
ABP will hold a vote on the changes at their AGM in December.
He is hopeful that the Alberta Beef Producers will remain a member by the end of the process.
