Bill C-18 (Historical)

Marketing Freedom for Grain Farmers Act

An Act to reorganize the Canadian Wheat Board and to make consequential and related amendments to certain Acts

Part 1 of this enactment amends the Canadian Wheat Board Act to change the governance structure of the Canadian Wheat Board and to make other changes in preparation for the implementation of Parts 2 and 3. Part 2 replaces the Canadian Wheat Board Act with a new Act that continues the Canadian Wheat Board and charges it with the marketing of grain through voluntary pooling. Part 3 provides for the possible continuation of the Board under other federal legislation, while Part 4 provides for its winding up if no such continuation occurs. Finally, Part 5 provides for the repeal of the new Act enacted by Part 2.

Marketing Freedom for Grain Farmers Act

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, it is hard to know how to use the 10 minutes allocated for this stage of the debate, but let me begin by saying there are many times in the House of Commons when reasonable people can reasonably disagree, and this is one of them. This is one of those cases where the farming community is divided. We do not know if it is 60:40 or 40:60 because there has not been, by the government's accounting, a fair test of the actual will of the people.

What we do know is that there has been no empirical evidence whatsoever presented by the government to convince our side of the argument, which I argue is a perfectly legitimate point of view. The government has not presented any paperwork, documentation or business case as to why or if farmers will be better off. It tells us over and over again that farmers will be better off, but it is anecdotal. It is much like my colleague just said. He did a straw poll of 20 farmers in his riding and all 20 of them said they wanted to get rid of the Wheat Board. That is not very scientific when there are some 75,000 prairie farmers producing grain. We do not have the tools we need to do our job. If we are going to have a reasonable debate, we would all benefit from the same base level of information.

We have empirical evidence. We have 75 years of evidence that says the Canadian Wheat Board has served farmers well and provided the best possible price at the minimum possible risk for farmers in an inherently unstable industry. We have asked the government to produce something, anything, to support its contention. In the absence of any documentation, business plan or cost benefit analysis, we can only assume that no such documentation exists. This leads me to the conclusion that it is a reckless and irresponsible action on the part of government to undertake such a comprehensive change in the way the rural prairie farm economy does business without so much as a business plan.

The government accuses us of all kinds of things, but nobody in his or her right mind would dismantle a successful $6 billion a year corporation without an impact study, a business plan and some justification and documentation as to why and if it will be better. We have heard nothing. To add insult to injury, not only has there been no evidence, no documentation and no proof, other than the notion and the whim of some self-interested Conservative members of Parliament who in fact farm grain themselves and who, I will argue later in my speech, are in a direct conflict of interest, now the Conservatives have even shut down debate. They have moved closure so that we will not be able to do our due diligence.

It is our job as members of Parliament to analyze, assess and test the merits of legislation put before us with reasoned debate, but we are not going to have that opportunity. A lot of people do not realize that the Conservatives pulled a fast one regarding the committee. Instead of sending the bill to the agriculture committee or even the international trade committee, they are sending it to a special legislative committee, which, by some happy coincidence, is not allowed to bring in witnesses other than technical witnesses to talk about the technical details of the bill.

Nowhere in the study at the committee stage will farmers be brought in to discuss the merits of the bill. The committee will only be able to discuss what various sections of the legislation actually do. That does not help members with hearing witnesses about whether or not they like using the Canadian Wheat Board. At no point in this process will we be discussing the merits of this sweeping, profound and permanent change the legislation contemplates in the way prairie farmers market their grain.

I have some quotes which I think members will find interesting. It seems almost everybody, except the Conservatives present, recognizes that the Canadian Wheat Board has been a net advantage to prairie farmers.

Robert Carlson, president of the North Dakota Farmers Union, said that he is convinced the Wheat Board earned Canadian farmers big premiums compared to U.S. prices and that the end of the monopoly will further weaken North American farmers and give more control to the giant multinationals. He said that it has been consistently true that the Canadian Wheat Board has earned more money for Canadian farmers.

Americans have been aware that the Wheat Board is an advantage for years. That is why they filed 13 separate trade complaints at the GATT and the WTO claiming that it is such an advantage to farmers it constitutes an unfair trade practice. Thirteen times they lost.

Alan Tracy, president of the U.S. Wheat Associates, said that the elimination of the single desk would leave a void in farmer advocacy, market development, customer support, export promotion, and quality assurance.

Listen to what the president of the Canadian National Millers Association said:

The CNMA knows of no research or evidence that demonstrates or even suggests that tinkering with the Canadian Wheat Board's mandate will create new North American market demand and opportunities for Canadian wheat flour millers.

He went on to say:

We do not anticipate the ultimate survival of the CWB without its current single-desk authority.

It kind of puts to lie this myth that the voluntary wheat board can survive when we all know this is chimera. He went on to say:

And we are certain that the CWB will not continue to be a reliable, full-service supplier to the Canadian wheat milling industry under those circumstances [of a dual market].

Perhaps one of the most revealing quotes we came across was by one of these big agrifood industry giants that will be the ones that will benefit. Our contention is, and in the absence of any evidence to the contrary I believe it should hold, this particular action would takes hundreds of millions of dollars out of the pockets of prairie farmers and put them into the pockets of the shareholders of the agrifood giants, one of whom I will now quote. We all know Mr. Paterson, a Winnipeg grain giant. We have seen the Paterson stamp on all kinds of grain elevators all across the Prairies:

“We’ll do better than we do now,” says Mr. Paterson...whose family firm has climbed to more than $1-billion in annual revenues. “Our best years were in the time before the wheat board,” and that pattern should reassert itself, he says.

They are salivating. He is being quite controlled and temperate in his comments, but behind closed doors they are salivating and wringing their hands with glee that finally they can return to the bad old days of the 1920s and the 1930s. They could gouge Canadian farmers mercilessly when they owned the industry, when they owned the whole food supply chain, from the seed in the ground to the final finished product on the store shelves. They want it all. They want that vertical integration. They are going to gouge farmers, and that is how they are going to get it.

I have done some research on what the prices were like in the years when they had a single desk and the years when they did not; in the years when they had the five-year wheat pool and the years when the pool was gone; in the years when they had a voluntary wheat board and in the years when the single desk Wheat Board came in, in 1943. We studied these things. We have the graphs, the charts and the empirical evidence to draw from. The Conservatives have produced nothing, not a single word in support of their arguments, but the anecdotal whim and notions of a minister who is deluded and obsessed and who came here for one reason and one reason alone and that is to abolish the Canadian Wheat Board.

We are dealing with people who are in a direct personal conflict of interest. If they had any honour and decency, they would abstain from this debate and they would recuse themselves from the vote, because they personally stand to gain from abolishing the Wheat Board, if they believe their rhetoric. They say that prairie farmers will get more money if they abolish the Wheat Board. If that is true, they should abstain from this debate and recuse themselves from the debate altogether. If one accepts, as our argument is, that they would not make more money, then why are the Conservatives turning the rural prairie farm economy upside down and on its head when they have no evidence whatsoever it would be at the advantage of Canadian prairie farmers?

[Jim Hillyer, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the member insists that MPs who are prairie grain farmers refrain from voting and debating. It is not surprising since it is a fundamental doctrine of his ideology that big brother knows best and that those people who are actually impacted by these decisions, who have first-hand knowledge of these things, could not possibly be smart enough to govern themselves.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Let them vote.

[Jim Hillyer, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Mr. Speaker, every member gets to vote for himself or herself and is not required to be forced by big brother or his or her neighbour.

Would the member explain why prairie farmers are not deserving of this equality, while people of minorities across the country are always afforded this freedom? Why not the prairie grain farmers?

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague from Lethbridge makes my point for me, exactly. Why not let prairie grain farmers vote on how they want to market their grain? That is how this whole debate began, continues and will end. We are insisting, if the government wants to give prairie farmers more choice in how they market their grain, let them vote on it, which is what the legislation says. My colleague has helped us to make the very point we are trying to make.

The conflict of interest is so profound and so obvious. Any member of Parliament who has read the conflict of interest code that guides all of us in our conduct will know that they are duty bound and honour bound to step out of this debate and not vote on this particular piece of legislation.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Mr. Speaker, on that very question, what Bill C-18 does is it puts big brother back in charge, does it not?

Prior to 1997 the board was run by three commissioners. The government of the day changed it to allow an elected board of directors, five appointed and ten elected. Now this bill fires the ten farmer-elected directors and puts in place five appointed directors. Big brother is now in charge.

I would submit that there is a terrible conflict of interest.

One of the directors is a guy by the name of David Carefoot. He has served as chief financial officer for Viterra Inc. and spent six years with Agricore United. Viterra itself has indicated that breaking the Canadian Wheat Board monopoly could be worth 50¢ to 75¢ of per share value to Viterra.

Why is the government taking the fate and control of the Wheat Board away from farmers and turning it over to government hacks who are working for multinational grain corporations from the inside? Does the member agree with me?

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, it does beg the question of which side the Conservatives are on.

If the Canadian public only knew some of the dirty tricks associated with the Conservatives' efforts to stamp out the Wheat Board, they would be horrified. They carpet-bombed the whole prairie region with taxpayer-funded misinformation and propaganda. The government imposed a gag order that prohibited the Wheat Board directors from even defending themselves and correcting the misinformation. I do not think the Canadian public with a democratic sense and a sense of right and wrong would ever tolerate such a thing.

Let me say simply that the member for Macleod should not be voting on this bill. As well, the member for Yellowhead, the member for Vegreville—Wainwright, the member for Red Deer, the member for Cypress Hills—Grasslands, the member for Crowfoot, and the member for Prince Albert, none of them has any right to vote on this bill.

In fact, it will be a contravention of the conflict of interest code if they stand up and vote on this bill tonight. They should not even be participating in the debate because, by their own arguments, they stand to benefit personally.

[The Acting Speaker, Barry Devolin]

Order. It is my duty pursuant to Standing Order 38 to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Nanaimo—Cowichan, Service Canada; the hon. member for Etobicoke North, The Environment; and the hon. member for Charlottetown, Veterans.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Wetaskiwin, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to address some of the myths regarding our government's actions and our commitment for marketing freedom.

Western Canadian farmers gave our government a strong mandate to provide that marketing freedom. I want to point out, for all my colleagues in the House who will ask questions later, that the mandate is very loud and clear, particularly in central Alberta.

The legislation we are proposing would bring an end to the monopoly of the Canadian Wheat Board. It would give western Canadian wheat and barley farmers the marketing freedom they want and they deserve. It has been a well-known plank of our platform for years and western Canadian rural ridings continue to support our government by electing representatives who believe in marketing freedom.

Some critics may say that we are ignoring the law and the Canadian Wheat Board Act, which is hogwash, and that the act calls for a plebiscite before the Minister of Agriculture introduces a bill to add or remove a grain from the monopoly provisions of the act. However, Parliament created the Canadian Wheat Board Act and Parliament is able to amend or repeal it. In fact, even the NDP member for Winnipeg Centre agrees with us on one thing, which is that he has said that the government has the right to change the legislation.

Some will say that farmers will be devastated by this change. In fact, farmers in western Canada are very well able to manage their own affairs and market to the buyer of their choice. We see that all the time in the non-board commodities. They have built growing canola and pulse industries without a monopoly marketer in place. Why should western farmers not enjoy the same marketing freedom as other farmers in Canada?

As well, we have heard some critics say that we have a handful of grain multinationals controlling the world trade in wheat and other cereals and that Canadian farmers will simply be at the mercy of these huge companies. Our government does not buy into those scare tactics.

Farmers in western Canada deal with grain companies when they market their canola, pulses and non-board commodities, and they do so successfully. In fact, canola and pulses are actually up in numbers compared to wheat. Those industries are growing steadily and they are attracting investment in value-added activities such as canola crushing.

We trust farmers to make their marketing choices based on what is best for their own business needs. Farmers have the skills, the information and the tools to put themselves in the driver's seat, and we are here to help ensure they can achieve all of that potential.

Agriculture has played a major role in keeping Canada's economy on solid ground through some challenging times and when other economies are faltering. Ours is not a government that sits on its hands when the people it represents see new opportunities for themselves to succeed. We are a government that has consulted with farmers since the very beginning and we are continuing to consult with them on this matter.

The Minister of Agriculture has asked department officials to meet with the industry and stakeholders, including the Canadian Wheat Board itself, throughout the past summer in order to assist in developing a transitional plan for opening the market. Our government has always said that it is open to seeing the continuation of the Canadian Wheat Board as a voluntary marketing option for producers. That has been the campaign commitment and that is the campaign promise that will be kept.

The board has some very bright and effective employees and should be able to operate in this new environment. If farmers choose to support the new model, they will have every opportunity to succeed.

Peter Phillips, a public policy professor at the University of Saskatchewan, believes that the board can and should have a long-term future. He points out that 60% of the producers say that they like to use the board, so that is a pretty good client base to start with right there.

Our government is committed to creating an open market for western Canadian grain farmers that attracts investment, encourages innovation, creates value-added jobs and will build a stronger Canadian economy. Canadian farmers and processors are eager to compete in changing world markets and to meet the ever evolving demands of today's consumers.

Over the past five years, our government has worked hard with farmers to help grow their businesses, drive Canada's economy and leverage our natural advantages of land and resources. Our most precious resource is the ingenuity, commitment, dedication and hard work of our farmers.

Canada's economic action plan has invested in that natural advantage and delivered real benefits to agriculture across the country in creating jobs in our various communities. We are a government that acts on facts and sound judgment and on the expressed will of Canadian farmers. The 21st century will be a challenging and exciting time for agriculture in Canada. Our farmers deserve the freedom to meet these challenges and opportunities as they see fit. It is a matter of economics, dignity and respect.

In fact, the C.D. Howe Institute released a report entitled, “Pulling the Plug on Monopoly Power: Reform for the Canadian Wheat Board”, dated June 23, 2011. This report takes on the logic of monopoly supporters who argue that, by selling together, western Canadian farmers exert more market power in wheat markets and receive higher returns than if they competed against each other. However, the report underlines that the declining global market shares of Canadian wheat makes it increasingly unlikely that the Wheat Board is able to exert this market power. As a result, reform is needed. This reform includes reconsidering the CWB's monopoly.

I know my colleagues in the opposition are dying to hear the report, which explains the Herfindahl-Hirschman index, which measures market concentration. It illustrates how unlikely it is that the Canadian Wheat Board would exert pricing in the world wheat market. Canada's share of annual production has fallen from 8% in 1962 to less than 4% today. Likewise, Canada's share of the export market has fallen from over 25% to less than 14% in that same time period. Equally, Canadian market share in the world barley export markets has declined from 50% in the early 1980s to less than 10% today. In that sense, the Wheat Board is a price taker in so many of these markets.

The report also supports our government's position that, even without sole buying and selling authority, the Canadian Wheat Board's existing infrastructure, expertise and worldwide distribution of its trading staff would make it an attractive pool for farmers to voluntarily participate in and successfully sell their wheat in world markets. The option also remains available to farmers who prefer to specialize in producing wheat for domestic consumption, rather than trading it on the world markets. The economics are clear.

I invite my colleagues opposite to join us in this exciting new chapter for Canadian agriculture, rather than focusing on the negative rhetoric and all the things that we cannot do. We should focus on this opportunity for change. It is inevitable in all facets of life, and western Canadian wheat and barley farmers deserve the same marketing freedom and opportunities as other farmers, not only in Canada but around the world.

I encourage all members of the House to think this through and show their support for western Canadian farmers as they capitalize on this new opportunity.

[Lynne Yelich, Conservative, Minister of State (Western Economic Diversification)]

Mr. Speaker, I was in Regina for the announcement of the investment that Mr. Al-Katib is making in the durum pasta processing plant. My husband, who is a farmer, is very excited about it because he will be able to sell directly to that pasta plant.

Because I could have a conflict of interest in drawing this conclusion myself, why does the member think that my husband would like to sell directly to that pasta plant?

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Wetaskiwin, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I suppose in the law of extensions, my father is a farmer. I grew up on a farm and we grew grain. I do not know if I will be asked to recuse myself from the vote as well.

However, the reality is that it does not make any sense to me or to anybody else who holds any value in owning their own personal property. The principle that people can take all of the risk in investing in their crop, machinery and purchasing the land and, at the end of the day, if they happen to grow wheat or barley, they can be subjugated to when they can sell their wheat, to whom and for what price makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. What we are providing is an opportunity for those farmers who wish to collectively pool and try to negotiate a better price through that pool, using the talented people at the Wheat Board who wish to stay on in its new form, but we need to allow those individual farmers who want to make those marketing choices for themselves to do so.

I have constituents in my riding who went to jail over this issue. This is a ballot box question in the constituency of Wetaskiwin and I can assure members that I did not lose a single poll in the rural portion of the riding.

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am listening carefully to this debate and to all the points made on both sides of the House. I listened to my colleague, and I would like him to explain why 62% of farmers voted to keep the single desk marketing for wheat and 51% voted to keep the single desk marketing for barley.

I am having difficulty reconciling this information with the fact that we often hear from the other side of the House, the government side, that farmers want markets that are fully open. They try to make us believe that western farmers are not worried about the big multinationals coming in to trample them. How can he explain the vote results?

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Wetaskiwin, AB]

Mr. Speaker, if my colleague had actually listened to my speech, she would know that we do acknowledge that there are farmers out there who wish to use the Canadian Wheat Board. However, that does not change the fundamental principle that an individual goes through the risk of having that land, buying that equipment, owning that property and taking all the risk.

The critic for the NDP was a carpenter. If he went through all the risk of purchasing the material, buying his tools and equipment, buying the lumber that is available at market price, speculating on a home and then actually had some board come in and tell him the price he could sell the home for, that would be outrageous. He, honestly, would be outraged that he could not sell that house at the price he needed in order to be competitive and keep his business running.

The same principle applies here. For those farmers who think they can get value out of it, and there are some who will, this legislation would provide for a viable Canadian wheat board to exist on a voluntary basis. If it is as good as everybody says that it is, then we should not fear ending the monopoly. If the folks who are working there have the contacts, have the marketplace already established, they have already got the competitive advantage over the individual farmers.

I have a question for the hon. member. Why are so many individual farmers telling me that they are not satisfied with the status quo?

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank all my colleagues for their, at times, very impassioned speeches about the Canadian Wheat Board. There is no question that on both sides of the House there is a real delineation of thought as to what it is we believe that farmers want.

It is ironic that there are farmers among us on both sides of the House who have different viewpoints on it. That is fair from the perspective of having different viewpoints, but what I find amazing about this whole debate is the government's insistence that somehow the market is the direct benefit to all farmers at all times.

It reminds me of my younger days when I was first married and my wife and I decided to seek out a financial planner and talk about raising some money to buy a home and do all the things that young couples do. I interviewed a financial planner who talked to me about the market. I thought it was wonderful that he was telling me exactly how it works, except what he kept repeating was not to worry and that things always get better. What I am hearing the government tell farmers about wheat, durum and barley is not to worry, it will always gets better and they will get better prices.

I have heard all about the risks that farmers take and they do. As the critic for agriculture, I understand the risks that farmers take when they put seed in the ground, buy equipment and decide on the rotation for the year. They make all of those decisions and then have to face the vagaries of the weather, whether it be the floods in southern Saskatchewan or southern Manitoba this year or frost.

Conservatives on this side never talk about the downside of the market. My friends on the other side constantly want to teach us about the markets, which is nice, but they should at least be honest and say that markets go up, yes indeed, and markets go down, absolutely. Folks who bought RRSPs in 2008 got a bit of recovery after that, but ask them how they are doing in 2011.

When people throw themselves to the markets, they do not have ultimate control. They are not the markets, they are just players. Depending on size, they are either big players or not so big. If they are not so big, they do not have the same clout as big players, which means that ultimately the big players make more than the smaller players or takes advantage of them.

My friends on the other side talk about value-added and this new pasta plant that is going to open in the Prairies, which is a wonderful thing. They insist that means that primary producers, the farmers, in the west would get a better price if they go on the open market. We have seen a stock circular put out by a particular company. If we happen to go through it, one line says its expectation of making additional profit is by paying lower prices for primary products.

It reminds us of what happens when value is added. The value gets added in and the price gets taken at the other side, which is not the farmer but the consumer. The middle guy, who is the producer-processor, is not the farmer. The farmer is at the other end of that chain actually putting things in at the beginning where the first price comes. When the processor or producing-manufacturing group in the centre who has the power cannot get more money from the consumer end and wants to increase profits, because that is what the company's stockholders want, they squeeze it out in costs.

My friends on the other side constantly let us know how knowledgeable they are on these things. All business owners know that they wring out costs if they can and they wring it out at the bottom, at the front end, the farmer. When farmers do not have the ability to go somewhere else, they are told they can go where they want.

I wonder how that will look in five years when they do not get the producer cars that they rely on any more or the track time they need to get to the coast, port or wherever it happens to be they cannot get any more because there is a new potash mine and all of a sudden CN or CP is saying the mine pays more and the farmers can wait.

My friends on the other side have talked about pulses. There is no question that pulse farms have done very well. One of the biggest complaints from the group around the pulse organization is that the biggest impediment in their ability to pay farmers well is getting their crop to market. Which market? Not in this country. They literally take it 5,000, 8,000, 10,000 kilometres across the globe to a market in either India or Southeast Asia. The largest single impediment to getting their crop there on time or losing the market, because they can, is the railway.

They are paying costs because ships are lying at anchor in the Port of Vancouver waiting for their product to get there and they are being held up because CN decided to send something else that made it more money. When grain farmers end up in that queue, and they will, they cannot move their product to market and the premium that is suggested by this market free enterprise government will be lost because they cannot get it there on time. The pulse groups are saying today that they will lose the market, not the premium, but the market, period, if they cannot move their crop.

It begs the question, if indeed we have such difficulty on both sides of the House on whether we should do this or that, we have really come to an impasse. We think we are right and members opposite think they are right. Why do we not just ask the folks who actually do it? Why do we not just ask the farmer?

It has been said here many times that there are 8 out of 10 elected board members. The government changed the requirements on how to elect them. An individual had to grow so much wheat. They had to do it in consecutive years, otherwise they did not get a ballot.

I heard earlier from some colleagues who said the widow of a farmer got a ballot for her husband, and that is unfortunate. I would not like my mum to get a ballot for my dad who is deceased either, but that happens from time to time.

We have folks on election lists in this country who are no longer with us. Lists sometimes are not that good. In this House we know lists are not always that good because we have our own lists of constituents. How many times have we sent things to constituents to have it returned to us because they do not live there or they are deceased?

However, if we were to hold a legitimate, government-held vote of the producers, agreed upon by the board, and asked them what they want, I think this House would be satisfied. On this side of the House we would be satisfied. If the producers told us what they want, we would say it is fair. Nothing more, nothing less. It is fair.

Now we are asking the folks we represent what they would like to do. Would they like this open market as has been described by members on the other side, market freedom, or would they want to continue down the road they have with the Wheat Board. If we asked them that question, and we could debate how we form the question, but if we asked them an honest, fair question from both sides, not a one-sided question, and let them decide, this House could then go about its business because they had made a decision.

Anecdotal stories are being told from one side or the other. My colleagues from Alberta say that in Alberta, this is what producers are saying. People call me from Alberta, and I am not from Alberta, who say they want to keep the Wheat Board. There is no question that there are some folks who want to keep it and there are some folks who do not. There is no question about that. Why do we not simply let them have the final say on all of this.

We should decide on the question we should put to them after debate, let them decide for themselves and accept their wishes, based on the fact that it is their ability and their democratic right to make a final decision on their lives. It is not necessarily mine. I do not farm wheat, and a lot of us do not, but at least farmers would be making a decision for themselves, not having it imposed on them by either side of the House, regardless of how the vote goes.

[Ted Menzies, Conservative, Minister of State (Finance)]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to my colleague from Welland, obviously speaking about something that he does not have a really good grasp of, and that is unfortunate.

I would have been happy to provide some of the information that I have tried to provide to some of the colleagues across the way that have not dealt with this lack of freedom. The member talked about who phoned him and who did not phone him.

There are farmers in western Canada who have been waiting for 35, 40 years for this, for the simple, same freedom that farmers in Ontario have had for a number of years. They have grown their business. They have been able to export wheat. Farmers in western Canada have not had that freedom.

I would ask that hon. member, why does he not think that I, as a farmer within the Wheat Board jurisdictional area, should be treated as any less of a citizen than his farmers in Ontario?