--finding of the survey.
Regardless of the percentage, it's close to fifty-fifty. Half the farmers want marketing choice; half the farmers want to have the single desk.
But the question is, at what point is it the right of the state to impose its views on all farmers? To enforce the monopoly, you have to have state intervention. The monopoly can only be enforced by the state. So you don't have farmers deciding whether they want to market individually or market collectively; you have the state, the Government of Canada, in its wisdom, having decided that one group of farmers will impose its wishes on another group of farmers.
The Wheat Board monopoly was brought in without a vote back in 1943. It was during wartime. The government of the day felt that it was in the best interests of the country. I think we can all agree that during wartime certain individual freedoms can be set aside, but it's 60 years since the war ended, and we feel that farmers individually should decide whether they want to market individually or market collectively.
If farmers wish to market collectively, that should be their right, just as people invest in mutual funds, or they deal with credit unions or caisses populaires. People have choices of whether they want to operate in pooling arrangements or whether they want to invest or sell on their own. That's all we're asking for the farmers of western Canada.