I have just one other point that certainly confirms the remarks in the task force report that a dual market is not possible, and it confirms Mr. Fulton's statement that without the single desk, without the monopoly, the board is certainly powerless.
This morning in the House, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Agriculture made this statement. For once we got some facts from him, and I'll quote him in full:
Mr. Speaker, the member should be embarrassed, he really should.
--he was talking about Ralph Goodale--
He was the minister in charge of the Canadian Wheat Board. He knows full well...that if we have choice the single desk is not in place, because by definition it cannot be.
We finally have it on the table, Mr. Chair, that if there's choice, there is no longer a single desk, and that is not what the ballot says. The parliamentary secretary's own words confirm the fallacy of the questions that the minister has put forward in a plebiscite.
I'm absolutely amazed that the government side on the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food would accept the contempt that the Minister of Agriculture is showing for this committee—which has reported to the House and directed the House, with the House of Commons voting and supporting this committee in that recommendation to the House—by stating that the minister be allowed to bypass what this committee has recommended in terms of a vote.
Be that as it may, those are the facts. I will say I am pleased that the parliamentary secretary was finally direct this morning and said what really is the fact: that the single desk and the open market cannot exist as one.
Thank you.