He was first elected to the Canadian Wheat Board's Advisory Committee in 1994, defeating incumbent candidate Larry Maguire in the western Manitoba region.
[1] This election was fought along clear ideological lines, with Maguire opposing the CWB's monopoly status and Nicholson supporting it.
[2] Nicholson criticized the group Farmers For Justice in 1995, after some of its members tried to market their own wheat in the United States in contravention of Canadian law.
He defended the Wheat Board's monopoly status in a 2000 interview with the Winnipeg Free Press, arguing that single-desk marketing allowed farmers to look after their interests and avoid exploitation from grain merchants and railways.
[5] Nicholson has recently criticized Conservative Agriculture Minister Chuck Strahl's efforts to reduce the Wheat Board's monopoly status.