OTTAWA - The Canadian Wheat Board's monopoly on western wheat and barley, a mainstay of Prairie agriculture for generations, is over.

Killing it has been on the Tory wish list for years, up there with tough-on-crime laws and an end to the gun registry.

After being stymied by minority Parliaments, the Harper Conservatives flexed their majority muscle Monday night and stripped the board of its legal lock on Prairie wheat and barley crops.

The House of Commons voted by a 153-120 margin to support the bill that ends the board's monopoly.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper made it clear last month that the so-called single-desk monopoly was on borrowed time.

"It's time for the wheat board and others who have been standing in the way to realize that this train is barrelling down a Prairie track," he said.

"You're much better to get on it than to lie on the tracks because this is going ahead. It's time for the wheat board to go out in a dual marketing environment, to cultivate its customers and provide a competitive service because those customers are going to have choice in the future."

Since 1943, farmers in a belt stretching from the Peace River district of northeastern British Columbia to the Ontario-Manitoba border have had no choice but to sell their wheat and barley through the board.

For decades, the board was simply an iconic part of the western Canadian fabric. But opposition began to grow.

There were complaints, for example, that it was unfair that Ontario farmers could sell grain as they pleased. In the 1990s, some renegade farmers went to jail for selling token shipments of grain outside the wheat board system. They said it was time for change.

With the passage of Bill C-18 through the House of Commons and what is expected to be a quick, pre-Christmas run through the Senate, the western grain industry will change for better or worse, depending on who is doing the talking.

Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz, who couches his arguments in terms of economic freedom, says it's the best possible solution for producers.

"Western Canadian farmers have waited far too long for the freedom to market wheat and barley that they pay to plant, spend months to grow and tirelessly harvest," he said Monday at a news conference.

He was joined on the dais by his Alberta and Saskatchewan counterparts, both of whom hailed the change.

"I feel it is great for Western Canada," said Evan Berger of Alberta.

"In our province, there's going to be an awful lot of happy producers," said Bob Bjornerud of Saskatchewan.

British Columbia Agriculture Minister Don McRae wasn't on hand, but offered long-distance support with a statement: "The federal government should be commended for fulfilling a commitment that provides fairness, equity and opportunity for Western Canadian farmers."

But to opponents, the move is fraught with disaster.

"The bill is a mistake in the making," NDP critic Pat Martin told the Commons during debate. "We are watching a terrible economic mistake unfold before our very eyes."

Martin said the government's rush to push the bill through -- it imposed closure on the debate twice -- is "an affront to democracy."

Rallies of farmers on Parliament Hill and a mass letter-writing campaign in support of the board were ignored by the government.

The board was established in 1935 to help farmers struggling through the Depression. It was given a monopoly in the middle of the Second World War in an effort to boost prices and encourage greater production.

Farmers pay for the board and profits are returned to them.

Since then, the board has used its access to the entire Prairie grain crop as a means of ironing out boom-and-bust cycles and for strategic marketing. It became one of the big players in world markets.

The legislation doesn't kill the board. It allows an interim Canadian Wheat Board to act as a voluntary marketing entity, supported by the federal government, while it transitions to full private ownership.

Farmers will still be able to sell grain there. But the agency will have to compete with other agribusiness players.

It's that competition that has people worried. They fear big international grain companies or the railways will end up controlling the market and cost farmers money in the long run by snuffing the very competition the legislation was meant to inspire.

Allen Oberg, chairman of the grain agency's board of directors, says that's the real threat.

"We cannot sit idly by while this government sacrifices farmers' interests to those of giant American grain corporations," he said as he rallied opposition to the change.

Supporters of the government move say producers of other crops, such as canola, haven't had that problem.

Passage of the legislation has been marked by bitter controversy. Opponents argued the Wheat Board Act couldn't be changed without a plebiscite among producers. When then government said that wasn't necessary and refused to hold a vote, the board ran one itself.

It found 62 per cent of wheat farmers who voted would stick with single-desk monopoly sales, as would 51 per cent of barley producers.

When the government called the poll flawed and ignored the results, the board went to Federal Court. A group of opposing farmers went to court themselves seeking an injunction against spending board money on the first case.

Ritz says government lawyers don't think the board has much of a chance in court.

But many farmers complain that the government is making an enormous change in the way they operate without even consulting them.

Ritz pointed to the federal election last May, when the Tories won 27 of 28 seats in Alberta and 13 of 14 seats in Saskatchewan, the major wheat-producing provinces.

Bjornerud added that his Saskatchewan party, which strongly supports the Tory position, won 49 of 58 seats in a provincial election two weeks ago.