Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I believe Larry said the amendment goes beyond the right of fairness, or something along those lines. Mr. Chair, I was initially fairly satisfied with the motion. I really do feel the motion doesn't go far enough, because it is only looking at the department, not necessarily the minister's office. I think we'll find that the department is probably shaking its head at the government's activities in this regard.
If you look at the regulation, it's not written like a regulation normally is, where you outline the pros and cons in a substantive way. In fact it states the concern right there, that there will be liabilities as a result of the breaking of contracts.
However, the parliamentary secretary, in terms of trying to go on a witch hunt with his amendments against anybody who happened to support the reward, including the provincial governments, the fellow had no choice but to put forward the amendment on the Prime Minister's Office, the minister's office, and the parliamentary secretary for the following reasons. I'm not overly concerned about whether the amendment carries or not, but the reasons should be stated.
It is well known that the Prime Minister, right from before he was in Parliament, basically had an ideological dislike toward the Canadian Wheat Board. There's no question that his office would be involved, because nothing happens in this town unless the Prime Minister's fingers are on it.
In terms of the minister, you have to look at the fact that he has issued directives to the board--an elected farm board. There was only one directive ever applied against the Canadian Wheat Board by a minister. That was when the Russians invaded Afghanistan and there was a blanket directive across all government agencies saying not to do business with Russia. That was the only time. However, since this minister, it has been almost a directive a week. But of course the minister won't sit down and really discuss the issues with the Wheat Board.
We need to see what's going on in his office, because he did issue the gag orders and directives on this, directives on that. He fired directors from the board, who were there for their international marketing expertise or their financial expertise so they could actually maximize their marketing authority for the producers' benefit. The minister fired those directors in order to put in people who were basically ideologically driven against the Wheat Board. You really have the enemy from within. If it were an elected director, it would be a different story.
I'm not going to take a lot of time, Mr. Chair, but the list goes on and on.
We have seen the firing of the CEO. The chief executive officer, Adrian Measner, was basically given a choice: he could break the law and keep his job or he could obey the law and be fired. The CEO is supposed to take his direction from the board of directors, not the minister. He is supposed to take his direction from the board of directors, and that was what he was doing. But because he wasn't abiding by the minister's wishes and he had no choice but to speak out on it as directed by his board, he was fired and replaced by another individual.
That individual, the new CEO, sat in that chair up there, with the parliamentary secretary sitting beside him. He gave us some facts on the Algerian marketing and the parliamentary secretary spoke against the appointed CEO, as if we shouldn't believe him. The minister and the parliamentary secretary had access to those facts. Why didn't they read the documentation provided by the board? They continue to perpetuate misinformation in order to undermine the board.
The parliamentary secretary probably does work 28 hours a day, because the amount of letters I've seen in the media from the parliamentary secretary perpetuating some of the misinformation and his dislike for the board is quite unbelievable.
The parliamentary secretary also spoke about the question in the House today, and I'll close on these last two points.
The government, the minister, the Prime Minister, the parliamentary secretary don't understand that the government should be held responsible for their actions. The PS spoke a few minutes ago about the task force. One of the recommendations of the task force—and I don't have the report before me, but it went somewhere along this line—is that the task force recognize the necessity to clear existing contracts prior to open market implementation. That couldn't be done in these short months.
When an international company does business with an agency, an institution that has Canada on it, they believe they're doing business with Canada as a nation. And when government actions force that institution to violate international contracts, our reputation for many things is destroyed around the world.
That's what's happened here. The government changed how you market. There's no question in my mind, yes, the spot prices for barley are high today; they will be low some day again as well. The empirical evidence on every study shows that the Canadian Wheat Board has always been able to take advantage of those high markets. And they have been. That's what the data will show.
But now we've got a situation where contracts are going to be violated as a result of the government action. Today in the House, the parliamentary secretary tried to make the point, because I raised a question, that I'm supporting the malting industry rather than the producers. That's not the case at all, because do you know who will pay the bill at the end of the day? If the malting industry sues the Canadian Wheat Board for violating their contracts, which they have every right to do, then everybody who ships through the Canadian Wheat Board...because it's the farmers who pay the bill, and because the government has put the Wheat Board in this position without doing the long-term planning, without looking at the negative consequences. Even in the gazetting it said there could be...liabilities wasn't the word, but it mentioned the contracts—