Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, gentlemen, for appearing today.
I do want to take exception to what I'll call the hollow argument that the world cares so much about the monopoly in this country. Very frankly, they don't care squat whether we have a monopoly or whether we have an open system. What they care about is price and quality, and the Canadian Wheat Board has no control over either.
It's the farmers who grow the grain who provide the quality. It's the Canadian Grain Commission that grades the grain to make sure that when it's exported, that quality standard is up to the specs of that particular sale.
I might add in here that at that point in fact over 60% of the grain--wheat and barley for human consumption--that leaves Canada is actually sold by the private trade. So the fearmongering that you folks have been throwing out there that things are going to fall off the end of the world, that the sky is going to fall, is pretty much false.
The other thing you don't have control over, which you are purporting to, is the price. The Chicago Board of Trade and the Minneapolis Grain Exchange set the price.
The other argument I've heard out there quite a bit lately is that the Port of Churchill will collapse, the town of Churchill will collapse, if we lose the monopoly. I have to then ask the question, how much have I been subsidizing, out of my grain cheques, the livelihood and the Port of Churchill? That's a pretty hollow argument. If that is the case, then it should be all of Canada subsidizing the Port of Churchill. If it is a viable place to ship grain out of, which I argue it is, then it should be able to compete on a level playing field for a price for exports.
So that argument doesn't ring very true to me.
I have one other question. When the directors of the board are acting as representatives of the board, does the code of conduct constrain them from partisan political activities, and if so, who monitors? If not, what are the consequences if a director is found to be outside of that jurisdiction?