Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
I like to see your passion. You make a good combatant for Wayne here.
I don't want to argue the point as to whether single desk is good or not good. That's a debate for farmers, and I'd like to see it settled. I don't know of a better way to do it than to have a vote by the producers. I recognize it's a difficult situation.
I am concerned a little bit about something. I know people in the medical profession, the health services profession, who believe we should have a user-pay system competing with the public-pay one. I believe in universal health care and I don't share their beliefs on that question. Like those people on both sides of your discussion, they both have valid points, and good people can differ in their opinions. But I wouldn't like the CEO of my regional health authority or my hospital to be somebody who does not believe in universal health care. I would be afraid that this person's interest would be in proving that the system he is asked to manage cannot work, and that he'd have to build a new user-pay system, which is what he prefers.
So you'll understand that I have concerns not about your views, but about the position you are being asked to take in managing a single desk marketing authority. Should it come to pass that it not be a single desk and that you'll be competing in the world with others, perhaps you will be the ideal gentlemen to be on that authority because you believe in competition. But I wonder if you have the capability, the desire, and the heart to go out there and prove that the single desk can work. Maybe the minister will see the light of day and we'll have a vote on wheat and there will be a decision to maintain it.
I understand that it is not unanimous among western producers, that it is a matter of debate. But should that come to pass, then you're in a position where you're asked to make the single desk work to its maximum advantage, to make the modifications in the single desk system to take advantage of the opportunities that have been argued successfully here—and we heard Ken Ritter point to some of the decisions and changes that they have made.
So I ask you to tell me, to convince me, that you have the heart to make the single desk system work, if that's the decision that is taken, and that you're not there just to argue against it, to argue that it cannot work.