Election results are in

Winnipeg - The ballots are in and the count is completed for the 2005 Manitoba Canola Growers Association election. The counting of the ballots took place today at Meyers Norris Penny LLP Brandon office. This year there were seven candidates running for four available spots on the board.

The candidates were:

Brian Chorney, East Selkirk	Ed Rempel, Starbuck
Steven Fosty, Beausejour	Ernie Sirski, Dauphin
Wilfred Harder, Lowe Farm	Dallas Watt, Reston
Eduard Hiebert, St. Francois Xavier

MCGA would like to thank all candidates for allowing their names to stand for election.

Every 2 years MCGA elects four Directors to a four-year term on its eight-person board. Directors are elected at large and therefore come from all areas of the province. Directors are responsible for guiding MCGA’s use of check off dollars in the areas of research, market development, and extension.

Re-elected for four-year terms were Brian Chorney, Ed Rempel, and Ernie Sirski.

New to the board will be Wilfred "Butch" Harder. Butch will take office on January 17, 2006 after MCGA’s annual meeting.

There were 1,725 were returned. 2 ballots were rejected due to bar code violations. So 1,723 ballots were scanned. 3 ballots were disqualified for not having any ballots inside, 3 were disqualified for having multiple ballots in the envelope and 4 were invalid ballots(completed incorrectly). The total number of accepted ballots counted were 1,713.

Ballot count was as follows:

Elected	Defeated
Brian Chorney – 1,108	Dallas Watts – 640
Wilfred Harder – 900	Steve Fosty – 582
Ernie Sirski – 839	Eduard Hiebert – 485
Ed Rempel – 785

"I am looking forward to working with the newly elected Director and returning Directors," says President Ernie Sirski.

MCGA is a member organization committed to maximizing net income from canola.

For more information please contact:

Bill Ross
Executive Manager
(204) 982-2120
rossb@mcgacanola.org