I think you may be surprised where these documents have appeared when you see where they're from.
That's good. I appreciate that Mr. Easter wants the facts. I don't know how many empirical studies have really been done out there. There have been a number of political ones done. It's interesting, because when the Canadian Wheat Board does a study, they usually go back to the one or two economists they use on a regular basis. And sure enough, they reconfirm what they've said before, and I guess it would be a real surprise if they didn't, because then they'd be contradicting what they said before. So I don't know how he would expect them to take a different position from what they have in the past.
I'm going to give him some empirical data. He wants to listen to that. I'm going to talk about barley, because this is important. This is directly tied into this motion and the barley plebiscite and all the things that are important to farmers on August 1.
He actually addresses the issue by saying that the Wheat Board claims that they give premiums, and they've used Mr. Richard Gray to try to substantiate that. But Mr. Otto says he doesn't know where they're getting their information from. He did a comparison of barley prices in Shelby, Montana, and again, the Canadian Wheat Board system. He said that in January 2007 barley prices freight-on-board in Shelby, Montana, were $7.50 a hundredweight. This worked out to about $3.60 U.S. a bushel or $4.25 Canadian a bushel net to the producer. Now, that's a pretty good price for barley. I think most people would be pretty happy if they could get $4.25 a bushel for their barley.
But the malt market price, according to the Canadian Wheat Board's PRO at that same time, was $205 a tonne, which, after taking off the freight and handling, works out to be $3.37 a bushel.
So if Mr. Easter wants empirical data, there's a figure of $4.25 on one side of the border and $3.37 on the other side. And that is, I think, 88¢ a bushel. So again, if the--