There are two things. One is that if we could open up the system in western Canada, we would have access to dozens more varieties of grain and dozens more opportunities to grow different products. I think that's why the committee recommended that the KVD system be set aside, so we do have those opportunities in western Canada that we have across the rest of the country. Ontario set that aside 17 years ago; their industry has bloomed because of that.
The second thing I have to say about that is organic producers in western Canada have been at a severe disadvantage because of our marketing system. Until this year, the Canadian Wheat Board has not marketed organic grain. The producers have gone out, they have made the sales, then they've had to make an arrangement through the Canadian Wheat Board to buy back their grain from the Wheat Board, and then make their sales. The Wheat Board takes a cut off the top for doing nothing.
This year, it's a big cut. A producer in my area said that over the last ten years that buy-back provision has probably cost him $1 million on his farm. He's growing organic grain, and they've been able to sell it, but every time he sells a bushel of grain a cut goes to the Canadian Wheat Board, and they have not been the ones who have been marketing the grain.
This year the Wheat Board decided they were going to start getting into marketing the grain, so they picked one of the organic certification outfits they liked to set up a pilot project. I had organic farmers tell me what happened then is they phoned the people who are buying from them, and these guys said the Wheat Board had phoned them and told them they were going to be selling grain this year, so they expected them to have to deal with that and be in competition with them. Farmers wouldn't mind being in competition with them, but they don't like having to pay them the buy-back as well as trying to compete with them.
Mr. Gourde makes a good point, but western Canadian farmers would love to have that opportunity. Organic would be a good place for the board of directors to make some exceptions; they can give no cost buy-backs and export permits. The organic industry is not so big in western Canada that it's going to threaten the Wheat Board at all. This is one area where they could really show some leadership, open things up a bit, and it would be an area where farmers would then begin to believe they are interested in working with them.