Thank you.
You have heard me say several times that we believe a plebiscite should be held, that it is the democratic and right thing to do. But any plebiscite or any survey question that is asked needs to be clear, honest, and honourable. That means it has to respect the best evidence that we have. The best evidence that we have tells us very clearly that a Canadian Wheat Board will not survive, it will just become another grain company if it does not have the single desk.
It took years to put this together. If the single desk is lost, it will never be replaced. It cannot be replaced. You can't go partway. So the question, to be honest and honourable, really does need to ask, are you in favour of the single-desk Canadian Wheat Board or not? That is clearly the evidential choice that farmers should be able to make. Any kind of twisting and turning and manipulating of information that does not allow them a straight, clear, honest, and honourable question is anti-democratic.
I am convinced that you must come at it from a philosophical position. I can tell you from conversations with many of the people who are farming and do not like the Canadian Wheat Board that they'll say they don't care about the economics of it; it's the philosophy.
In a democracy, we have a right to organize ourselves in a variety of different ways. With a lot of work historically, farmers chose to be organized in this way and got the support of their government to be organized in this way. This is a democratic structure, it is not anti-democratic. People do have a right to be involved in this board.