A recently fired Canadian Wheat Board director says he suspects he was removed because he supports the board's existing monopoly on selling grain.

Regina developer Ross Keith found out recently that his term as one of five appointed directors for the CWB would be ending 14 months early.

Keith, who has had a long association with the Liberal party in Saskatchewan, was a Liberal government appointee who had been on the board since 1999. His latest term was supposed to expire on Dec. 31, 2007.

He's now one of three directors to go since the Conservatives won the Jan. 23 parliamentary election.

A second director was replaced when his term ended in the summer. A third recently resigned.

Keith said he wasn't completely caught off guard when he got the call from the office of Chuck Strahl, the federal agriculture minister.

"The minister had contacted me several weeks ago and had indicated that they were considering terminating my appointment and asked if I had any comments, so I did provide some comments," he said.

"Apparently, there was an order in council passed last week, Thursday, that terminated my appointment."

Although Keith wasn't told why he was dismissed, he believes it's because he supports the board's grain-marketing monopoly.

Strahl has vowed to scrap the so-called "single-desk" system to allow farmers to market their own wheat and barley.

Keith feels the changes being proposed by the federal government should be put to a farmer plebiscite. 

"There's, you know, a great many people whose livelihoods are very much affected, it's an institution that's 70 years old and I think it's irresponsible to proceed in a way that doesn't examine all of the options very carefully indeed," Keith said.

More changes to the board could be on the way. Voting for half of the 10  elected directors of the Canadian Wheat Board starts by mail-in ballot this week.