Thank you, Mr. Chair.
In the interest of time, I'll ask my questions and then perhaps panellists will choose one they would like to respond to.
Last night Bill C-300 was resoundingly defeated in the House of Commons with all four parties voting to some extent against it, indicating that Parliament does not want the Wheat Board destroyed. We also are well aware that in the spring survey of farmers, 88% determined that the decision as to the future of the Wheat Board should be made by farmers themselves. Why would the minister still be proceeding unilaterally to do this in the face of his moves being so antidemocratic?
Earlier on--and I know that all of you were in the audience--it was indicated that all of you will end up facing the concern of trade challenges. It's going to happen inevitably, whether the demise of the Wheat Board occurs or whether it continues. The prime lobbyists cheering the demise of the Wheat Board are in the United States grain lobby--in effect, your competitors. In fact, one newspaper article indicated that the Conservatives would be destroying what the U.S. has been trying to destroy for the past 12 years. Maybe one of you who has strong feelings about that could respond.
It was also in the agricultural and farmer media, press and otherwise, that it's now become common knowledge that the destruction of the Wheat Board would eventually lead to the slippery slope of tax on supply management in some form or another. As representative farm groups, you must be getting this type of communication from different organizations; it's not just one group trying to identify this.
The fourth point is that no matter where you are on this side of the issue, we have seen people fired from their jobs, we've seen the muzzling of free speech, and we've seen interference in voter registration, with thousands of people being denied the right to vote. There is the concern with freedom of the media, freedom of the press, freedom of free speech and those types of things in western Canada, which you are the representatives for. The rest of the nation probably hasn't had the attention to this, but it seems to be growing; other people seem to be concerned about the chronic muzzling by the minister.
The fifth point I would like to make is that Ms. Holm talked about the diminution and eventual eroding of the grain infrastructure in terms of rail cars and the ability to move in quantity to compete. I myself represent the Port of Thunder Bay. We are also concerned that dissolving the infrastructure would only lead to greater monopolies by mega-multinational corporations, as opposed to independent operators. If we are truly, as you represent, many independent smaller farmers, the concern from Parliament last night--and the reason the vote was so strong--was the fear of losing more farmers to bankruptcy, the fear more farms would be squeezed out by the megacorporations.
There are five of you; there are five questions.