Agriculture committee  That will be fine. Thank you, members of the committee, for allowing us to appear before you.

Agriculture committee  I'll begin by expressing my view this way. I think the debate has become very divisive and totally unnecessary. First of all, yes, there are people who have the view of the Western Canada Wheat Growers, of course, and that's their right to have that view. Nevertheless, at the e

Agriculture committee  Let me just add one more point. For my argument about debate being divisive and unnecessary, I'll give you two examples. At our last board meeting we passed two resolutions. One was that we have a small processors' exemption of 500 tonnes. That will mean you can sell outside th

Agriculture committee  Thank you. In response to your question about political activity, Mr. Menzies, I'd just like to read to you, through the chair, subsection 4(2) of the CWB Act: “The Corporation is not an agent of Her Majesty and is not a Crown corporation within the meaning of the Financial Admi

Agriculture committee  I think any time major change occurs it should be backed up with good solid analysis. Our view is that if people think there's some kind of a political game to be played in whatever, let's have a group that represents the spectrum of views and let them come up with some kind of a

Agriculture committee  Mr. Chair, in response to the witness, we have an order in council now that may or may not cover the kind of answer I'm going to give. But let me just answer that I can speak from my heart here on this matter. This is an issue that farmers understand, sir. They all know what the

Agriculture committee  I want to add about how we select our CEO. The process began when our then transitional CEO, Mr. Arason, indicated that he was resigning. So as a board we felt very strongly that we had to engage the best practices we possibly could, one that any other corporation in this countr

Agriculture committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Agriculture committee  I will begin, Mr. Chairman.

Agriculture committee  Mr. Chairman, members of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-food, I wish to thank the committee for providing the CWB the opportunity appear before it today. With me is Adrian Measner, our president and CEO. After I have spoken, Adrian will also be ad

Agriculture committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman. First and foremost, the CWB will be marketing organic grain, but I want to preface my views like this. I'm not an ideologue. I try to live in what the market realities are. Today the market realities are that if you're not a big fish you generally get sm

Agriculture committee  Mr. Venn made a presentation here today; he described a unique kind of situation. At the board, we welcome Mr. Venn speaking to our management team and explaining his position. Our management team will then report back to the board of directors for discussion and decision. It's n

Agriculture committee  I have a couple of things. First of all, in the event of a plebiscite we would, as an organization, want to ensure that the plebiscite was legitimate and perceived to be legitimate by farmers, because that's the only way it has value and makes sense. So we're fully in favour of

Agriculture committee  But the mill can top up that price to whatever it wants. It has perfect freedom to do that.

Agriculture committee  Just to add to that, at all times, farmers who deliver grain through the CWB are the beneficial owners of that grain. The CWB doesn't keep any retained earnings or anything like that. So the benefit for the sale of the grain clearly goes to farmers on all occasions, which in my j