Thank you, sirs, for your presentations.
As you know, Quebec is home to a number of collective marketing organizations for, among other things, milk, pork and beef. There is one such organization in my riding of Bois-Francs--L'Érable and the surrounding region that markets maple syrup. Two years ago, the Quebec federation of cash crop growers even moved to establish a wheat marketing board in Quebec. However, it does not operate in the same way as the Canadian Wheat Board. The federation does not own the crops. That's the major difference between the Quebec board, and the federal organization.
However, over the years, the Quebec experience has revealed that collective marketing is not an efficient system. Voluntary collective marketing pilot projects were launched. This seems to be the direction favoured by the Conservative government in the case of the Canadian Wheat Board.
I'm interested in hearing your views, Mr. Ritter, on the Conservative government's proposal to set up a voluntary collective marketing organization. Judging from past experience, this approach has not proven successful. Cérégrain, Pomexpan and Pomexpert are just a few examples that come to mind. These collective organizations did not operate efficiently.