Thank you.
I want to comment about a couple of comments I've heard, not only from Mr. Easter but from some of my colleagues, and that is on this tie-in and this fear mongering about supply management. That quite frankly is irresponsible. You cannot tie the two together. The two organizations are totally different. Just as the federal Conservatives promised, I have promised to stand up for our supply-managed sectors and to help them. The tie is simply irresponsible.
The other thing is being afraid to allow the farmers to vote. Again, I take exception. Gentlemen, we had a vote. Mr. Easter, I believe you were in government at the time and you disallowed it. You told us it wasn't a valid question. I submit to you, Mr. Chairman, that a fundamental right any Canadian should have is to be able to opt out of a mandatory system that says I must sell to you even when I disagree that you give me any value at all. That fundamental right should be upheld, not only for the Canadians in our designated area but for all Canadians. Certainly for those of us who have to live and try to build agriculture in the designated area, that fundamental right must be restored. I applaud this federal government for bringing that fundamental right back to us.
With respect to value-added and the increase in malting, a lot of that malt is “moved business”. I would also suggest that it is very difficult for a wheat flour mill in Canada to export because of the domestic pricing policies of the Canadian Wheat Board. I would rather sell that high-quality wheat in a frozen dough form or a flour form, because the more marketplaces we open up in-country in the value chain for our producers, the better off we are. All of my colleagues have agreed with me on that position many times. We need to open up opportunities for our producers, not close them down.
When you talk about income from the marketplace, I agree. Our producers have enjoyed income from canola and oats over the last few years. Had they not, our support payments would have been substantially higher. The wheat and barley returns to producers have been declining. That is a fact. With canola and oats, the returns to our producers have been increasing. And the evidence, gentlemen, is very simple; it's in the acreage. Look at the growth in the canola acreage.
What moves farmers to grow something? It's the price they get. When a farmer from North Dakota is getting the same price for wheat as a farmer in Peace River, what's the point of having a monopoly that he can't sell to? When a small independent grain company has an opportunity to ship barley to Dubai, but he can't because he's priced out of the marketplace, even though he has the originations and the farmers wanting to do it, that's not only wrong, it's criminal. It's shutting down an industry. It's keeping us where Brazil, the East Bloc countries, and all those other emerging growers are going to blow by us in a heartbeat. We need to move on. We need to grow our industry.
Your committee and the Government of Canada are to be commended for moving forward with growing the agricultural industry and not keeping us as serfs to an entity. I ask for freedom.