Agriculture Committee on May 14th, 2009

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

I call this meeting to order.

Our committee is continuing its study on competitiveness in agriculture. We'll start with our witnesses, whom I would like to thank for attending today. I'm going to start with Mr. William Wilton and John Dawes from the Prairie Oat Growers Association.

[William Wilton, President, Prairie Oat Growers Association]

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, members of the committee. Thank you for inviting us to address you today.

My name is Bill Wilton and I'm the president of the Prairie Oat Growers Association. I farm about 1,400 acres of cereals and oilseeds at Ile des Chênes, which is just eight kilometres south of Winnipeg. Also here today is POGA's executive director, Jack Dawes, who lives in Saltcoats, Saskatchewan.

The Prairie Oat Growers Association was formed in 1998 by a group of farmers from Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba who saw the need for an organization to develop and support partnerships in the agricultural industry that would enhance the profitability of oats for the grower and increase oat value to the consumer. Since that time, the Prairie Oat Growers Association has successfully established oat producer organizations in Saskatchewan and Manitoba. Through these organizations, some 14,000 oat producers commit their own check-off dollars to research, market development, and other activities. Going forward, we see our mission being complete with having Alberta in the fold and on stream by the end of 2009.

Canadian oat growers are at a severe competitive disadvantage in comparison with European Union oat growers, mainly from Finland and Sweden. In the past, the EU has granted subsidies of up to $66.74 U.S. per tonne of Scandinavian oats shipped into the North American market. These subsidized oats compete directly with Canadian supplies, mainly in the southern and southeastern United States. In addition, the EU has in place punitive tariffs on the import of oats and oat products from non-EU countries such as Canada. These tariffs range from 89 euros per metric tonne on raw oats to 182 euros per metric tonne on flaked oat products.

At the same time, declining oat production in the EU, combined with increased consumption of oat products worldwide, indicates that there will be an opportunity for the export of Canadian oats and oat products to the EU. Your committee can help Canadian oat producers be more competitive by working to eliminate the EU tariffs on oats and oat products and by opposing EU subsidies on oat exports.

Historically, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada has helped to provide competitive advantages to oat growers. Oat research programs and support to the Cereal Research Centre at the University of Manitoba, the Crop Development Centre at the University of Saskatchewan, the AAFC facilities in Lacombe, Alberta, the Eastern Cereals and Oilseed Research Centre in Ottawa, and other AAFC facilities have provided Canadian oat producers with the best oat varieties and agronomics in the world. In fact, oats are the only Canadian cereal crop that has doubled its exports in the last 10 years. Domestic oat milling has increased by 50% over 10 years.

Oats have a tremendous story to tell. Recently we have become concerned about Ag Canada's ongoing commitment to oat research. Apparent lack of progress in building a replacement for the condemned Cereal Research Centre facility in Winnipeg is just one of those concerns. By way of illustration, we believe serious rust issues unique to the eastern prairies can best be addressed by research conducted in the affected areas where rust is recurrent.

From a human resources point of view, the impending retirement of a significant number of experienced senior oat researchers is a concern, since no process has been established to replace these researchers when they retire. The potential loss of their experience and knowledge is, frankly, alarming.

In the new Growing Forward model, Ag Canada seems determined to further engage industry in research funding. The Prairie Oat Breeding Consortium already in place and operated from the Cereal Research Centre in Winnipeg is a perfect example of successful cooperation between industry, producers, and government in funding oat research. The Prairie Oat Breeding Consortium is supported by American and Canadian oat millers, seed companies, oat producers, and Ag Canada. This consortium has been responsible for the development of the leading oat varieties in the eastern prairies. Further industry support to the Crop Development Centre in Saskatoon has helped in the development of the dominant oat varieties in the western prairies.

New initiatives and engaging industry participants are worthwhile ventures. However, AAFC must act to fulfill the department's traditional obligation to provide the basic necessities to foster and encourage research. Many studies have illustrated the outstanding returns on funds invested in agricultural research. Long-term commitments are necessary to encourage agricultural research.

It is apparent that A-base funding budgets at Agriculture Canada are shrinking in real dollar terms. Without committed long-term A-base funds to provide the facilities and human resources, research will stagnate for many crops that do not have the volume to attract industry investment. We submit that your committee can ensure that Canadian oat producers remain competitive by insisting that Agriculture Canada provide the long-term funding to support the facilities and human resources necessary for a vibrant research environment.

The continuing consolidation among suppliers of fertilizer, chemicals, fuel, equipment, handling, transportation, and financial services to the agriculture sector is an ongoing concern. This consolidation leads to a perception that there is no competition among suppliers, which in turn leads to higher costs for producers. For example, farmers are told that nitrogen fertilizer prices no longer reflect natural gas costs but are reflective of the manufacturers' ability to charge for their product. In addition, some chemicals are priced absurdly high in Canada compared to the U.S. price for the same chemical.

Elevation costs at high-efficiency elevators increase significantly on an annual basis.

Freight rates are another matter. Freight rates on oats from western Canada to U.S. destinations have increased seven times in the last 16 months, for a total increase of 34%. Farmers, who are the only participants in the supply chain who have no ability to recover increased costs, are expected to absorb these cost increases.

Your committee can help to ensure that Canadian agriculture remains competitive by insisting that the agencies responsible for enforcing competition enforce regulations in an equitable manner.

Mr. Chairman, I'll end my presentation there and welcome questions from any members of the committee.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Thank you very much for keeping well under the time. I appreciate that.

We'll now move to the Western Canadian Wheat Growers Association. We have Mr. Kevin Bender and Mr. Blair Rutter here.

Gentlemen.

[Kevin Bender, President, Western Canadian Wheat Growers Association]

Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, my name is Kevin Bender. I farm in central Alberta, near Red Deer. We grow oats, wheat, barley, canola, and peas.

Accompanying me is Blair Rutter, our executive director, from Winnipeg.

Again, I thank you for this opportunity to speak on the Wheat Board file.

As the committee is aware, the Wheat Board incurred $90 million in financial losses in its pricing options in the 2007-08 crop year. These losses amounted to almost $20 per tonne on the 4.5 million tonnes marketed under the three pricing programs it offered to farmers. The Wheat Board might be forgiven for incurring these losses if it meant Canadians had received a $20 per tonne premium under these programs; however, that was not the case.

A study by the C.D. Howe Institute, released last November, found that the average price available to prairie farmers for their spring wheat under the Wheat Board's daily price contract was almost $33 per tonne below the average daily price at U.S. elevators. So in effect, prairie farmers lost more than $50 per tonne under these programs: the $20 hit they took on the Wheat Board's books plus the $33 direct hit to our pocket books.

Bear in mind, too, that the CWB's daily pricing contract was their best pricing vehicle in the 2007-08 crop year. The pool return outlook for wheat was actually a further $17 per tonne below the average daily price values. No matter how you look at it, the CWB's performance in 2007-08 was abysmal.

Of course, this doesn't stop them from boasting about record returns they have provided to farmers. Of course there were record returns. Wheat prices on the world market were more than double what we had ever seen before. In boasting of these returns, the CWB is simply trying to mask its true marketing performance.

Its marketing performance in the 2007-08 crop year was not a one-time event. The Informal study found that farm gate returns provided to U.S. farmers in the open market were higher than what Canadian farmers received in five of the past six years for both spring wheat and durum wheat.

The CWB's price performance in the current year is no better. For example, the projected pool return outlook for spring wheat is currently $41 per tonne below the average daily price over the past nine months at 300 U.S. elevators tracked by the Minneapolis Grain Exchange. For a prairie farmer who grew 500 tonnes of wheat, the net bottom line loss amounts to more than $25,000.

It also appears as if the Wheat Board had widened the basis on its forward price options in the current crop year in an attempt to recoup the recent losses to the contingency fund. For example, yesterday in Manitoba the Wheat Board was offering a price of $6.39 per bushel for No. 1 spring wheat for fall delivery. This is exactly $1 Canadian per bushel below prices on offer for fall delivery at U.S. elevators. For winter wheat, the penalty for dealing with the Wheat Board is even greater. Yesterday, the price offered on the Wheat Board's forward price contract on winter wheat was $1.55 per bushel below the forward price offered at U.S. elevators.

The wheat growers do not believe we should be forced to accept the low prices offered by the Wheat Board. We should have the opportunity to lock in these forward prices if we so choose, as is the case for other crops. The wheat growers will be providing committee members with our spreadsheets and calculations so that this information can be verified.

In the face of all this evidence, the Wheat Board continues to boast that it captures a premium for prairie farmers, and yet year in and year out, the returns the Wheat Board provides are invariably lower than the returns provided by the open market.

Please note this is not about selling more wheat into the U.S. If the border were open, then U.S. prices would flow north. Arbitrage would ensure that prices on one side of the border would essentially be equal to prices on the other side, net of freight differences. Under an open market, you would not see these price discrepancies of $1 per bushel or more. Prices would arbitrage just as they do in the canola market. In canola, the Informa study found that in eight of the past nine years, the returns provided to Canadian canola producers were modestly higher than our counterparts in the U.S. This demonstrates that the Canadian open market can compete very effectively and obtain good returns to farmers when it is allowed to function.

The wheat growers have called on the government to appoint an independent firm to conduct a thorough investigation of the CWB's trading activities in the 2007-08 crop year. The firm should be mandated to discover why proper risk management systems were not in place. It should also investigate whether there were any breaches in Wheat Board management policies and recommend measures to prevent such trading losses from recurring.

The wheat growers would support the appointment of the Auditor General to conduct the investigation, provided she is given a wide scope of investigation and is given the resources to hire expertise in commodity training and risk management.

The wheat growers support a voluntary Canadian Wheat Board. We fully appreciate and respect that some farmers want to use the grain marketing services of the Wheat Board. What we don't accept is being forced to use their services. Many of us want to either contract services from another grain company or market our grain on our own. This is the option that is available to farmers elsewhere in our country. The wheat growers do not believe the federal government should be discriminating against farmers based on where they live. We simply want the same dignity and respect shown to prairie farmers as is shown to farmers in Ontario and elsewhere in Canada. It should not be illegal for farmers in one part of the country to sell their grain direct to processors when farmers in other parts of the country are free to do so.

The wheat growers believe all Canadians should be treated equally under the law. We ask your committee to recommend an end to this discriminatory federal grain marketing policy. At the very least, the wheat growers want the opportunity to market our grain under the same terms and conditions as those now available to prairie producers of organic grain. Currently the Wheat Board provides preferential treatment to organic grain producers by giving them the opportunity to buy back their wheat for a nominal fee, currently 21¢ for a bushel for wheat and 16¢ for durum. The wheat growers certainly support the choice of these farmers who engage in organic production methods; however, we believe the Wheat Board should be treating all farmers equally and not discriminating against certain producers solely on the basis of their method of production.

Again, we ask you to recommend that the minister instruct the Wheat Board to treat all farmers on an equitable basis.

The wheat growers also ask for your support in recommending changes to the Wheat Board election rules that would ensure that only actual producers are allowed to vote for Wheat Board directors and that a minimum tonnage threshold be introduced, so that those with little or no economic stake do not have the same say as those who depend on farming for their livelihood.

In the past two elections, the Wheat Board has mailed out ballots to over 62,000 permit book holders, even though 18,000 of them account for 80% of the deliveries. In other words, we now have a situation in which those representing 20% of the deliveries get 71% of the votes. We believe this goes a long way in explaining why the CWB election results do not reflect the majority of farmers, or certainly the majority of farm production that supports a voluntary Wheat Board.

Thank you again for the invitation to speak here and to share our views. We look forward to your questions.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Thank you very much, Mr. Bender.

We now move to the Canadian Wheat Board, represented by Mr. Ian White and Mr. Larry Hill.

[Larry Hill, Chair, Board of Directors, Canadian Wheat Board]

Good morning, everyone. My name is Larry Hill. I farm near Swift Current, Saskatchewan, and I am chair of the Canadian Wheat Board's board of directors.

With me here this morning is Ian White, the president and CEO. I'll have some opening comments and then I'll give the floor over to Ian to deal with some of the operational issues we would like to address with the committee today.

First of all, I would like to thank the committee for inviting us here to speak to you. Over the past several weeks, a number of witnesses have appeared before the committee to talk about competitiveness in agriculture and how we can better compete with other players on the international stage. This morning I would like to focus my comments on competitive advantages beyond the farm gate.

As a grain producer and a business person with substantial dollars tied up in both capital and operating expenses, I want to make it clear that if I support the Canadian Wheat Board, it's not out of ideology or attachment to the past or fear that I won't be able to market my durum just as I market my pulses today. The reason I support it and have served as a member of the board of directors since 1999 is that to me a shared approach to marketing just makes good business sense. I've had the privilege of serving three terms, and if eight out of ten elected directors support maintenance of the single desk, it's pretty clear that I'm not alone. In fact, according to preliminary survey results from our most recent survey of western Canadian farmers, over 70% support the CWB.

I believe an examination of the durum industry may help to illustrate why. Western Canadian exports make up about 50% of the world trade in durum. If I can work with other durum producers and sell my grain as part of what is effectively a durum cartel, it only makes sense that we'll be able to influence the market in ways that I can't by acting on my own. This was certainly the case in the past crop year. When other sources of durum had essentially dried up in the fall and winter of 2007-08, the CWB continued to sell in what was the highest-value market anyone had ever seen.

Opponents of the single desk, some of whom have appeared before this committee, criticized the CWB in the fall of 2007 for not posting values that were as high as the spot prices that our counterparts in the U.S. were getting at the time, somewhere around $6 to $7 per bushel. Those were historically high levels, and much of the U.S. crop was in fact sold at those prices. Markets were far from peaking, however, and we ended making up sales at over three times those values and returning a price to producers of over $12 per bushel for every bushel they sold. American durum producers are amazed when they find out that this is the price we got for each and every bushel through the pool.

The advantages of the CWB go well beyond the prices we receive, however. When you have one agent handling the marketing of some 18 million to 20 million tonnes of grain, it makes a great deal more sense to undertake the kind of long-term market development and branding efforts that you need to stay competitive. When the CWB goes to Southeast Asia, for example, to show processors the benefits of using durum in the making of Asian noodles, we know as growers that any increased sales will flow back directly to us. The same applies to funds that the CWB pumps into the Canadian International Grains Institute and all the test facilities that are found there.

The CWB is also part of an integrated system that has resulted in a reputation for western Canadian wheat and barley that is second to none. As producers, I think we deserve credit for growing a high-quality crop, but it's no accident that our efforts are also backed by institutions such as the CWB, the Canadian Grain Commission, the Canadian International Grains Institute, the Western Grains Research Foundation, and the Western Grain Standards Committee. All of them play a vital role in maintaining the value proposition of a western Canadian brand. As the only supplier of a quality product, it is the CWB that gives prairie wheat and barley producers the ability to extract full value from the marketplace for this brand.

The CWB also enhances the competitiveness of prairie agriculture by standing up for producers on key issues. Where it has knowledge and expertise that no one else has—for example, on the transportation front—we have been instrumental in bringing forward a number of service complaints. We look forward to the results of the service review that Transport Canada is currently conducting.

At the same time, we continue to believe, as do many western Canadian shippers, that there is a pressing need for a full costing review of the rail revenue cap, as producers continue to pay more than they should for the service that rail companies provide.

I would like now to ask Ian to make a few comments about CWB operations. After he has spoken, I will conclude our presentation.

[Ian White, President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Wheat Board]

Thank you, and good morning. My remarks have been given to the committee; however, I will make a few additional comments.

A significant area of the CWB's competitiveness for farmers is the marketing system we operate. With over 80% of the wheat exported overseas, to over 70 countries, not to domestic or U.S.A. customers--the U.S.A. actually accounts for about 5% of the total sales book--the CWB provides the farmers with what is regarded as the best of both worlds. We market the physical grain to what is the best long-term customer base in the world where we can provide market development and regularly gain premiums over other competitors. We then offer farmers a range of pricing options, including pool and/or a range of producer payment options for wheat, and the new CashPlus barley contract that allows them to have control over their pricing by using current market values through the year. The CWB is able to brand the grain as Canadian quality and use all of the deliveries to meet customer quality and logistical needs.

With respect to the producer payment options, a lot has been said about the CWB's management of these in 2007-08. This was a year of unprecedented volatility in wheat markets. While this was excellent for grain prices overall, it did play havoc with price risk management for many participants in the grain industry. The CWB was not immune from this.

When farmers use the PPO products to lock in prices with the CWB, we take action to hedge that in the futures markets. While these activities should net to zero over time, there were risks and particular market circumstances during periods of 2007-08 that did not allow that. Once the CWB realized that there were issues, we moved quickly to correct them. We did, however, have a loss to the contingency fund, as reported and documented in our annual report. Basically, the loss was caused by the lack of liquidity in wheat markets and never-seen-before large market inverses between nearby futures markets and further-out markets. The contingency fund is a separate fund set up specifically to absorb the inevitable pluses and minuses from operating such hedging programs.

As CEO, I have reviewed what happened and agree with the changes made. I've also had independent experts review the circumstances of the risk management of 2007-08 and have extensively discussed this with farmers and the government. In the main, the farmers particularly are satisfied with the explanations that have been given. I should add that the management of the PPO products for 2008-09 is going well and we expect the balance of the contingency fund to be around zero by the end of the financial year.

Thank you.

[Larry Hill]

Thank you, Ian.

The CWB board of directors is made up of both government-appointed directors, such as Ian, and farmer-elected directors like me. All of us were kept fully apprised of the state of the contingency fund and how the producer payment options were being managed. We approved the CWB's audited financial statements. We decided how the contingency fund should be repopulated. We brought in Gibson Capital to review how we fared in 2007-08, and we are satisfied that the improvements we've made will enable us to do better in the future. We're firmly committed to communicating openly on this issue with all of our stakeholders, including producers and the Government of Canada.

We have provided several letters to the minister's office wherein we have explained what happened in 2007-08 and how we've responded to the events. We have also attempted to meet with the minister. We believe meeting the minister is a very important step so that we can get a better understanding of any ongoing concerns the minister or his officials may have.

I would also like to note in closing that we have provided the members of the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food with a background document that deals with a number of statements made by witnesses who have preceded us in recent weeks. We hope that in conjunction with our testimony today, this will give the committee a thorough picture of how the CWB enables western Canadian grain producers to better compete in the marketplace.

Thank you. We welcome questions.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Thank you very much, gentlemen.

We'll now move to the Grain Growers of Canada. We have Ms. Monique McTiernan, from the Atlantic Grains Council, and Mr. Richard Phillips.

For ten minutes or less, please begin.

[Richard Phillips, Executive Director, Grain Growers of Canada]

Mr. Chair, we'll be sharing our time as well.

[Monique McTiernan, Executive Director, Atlantic Grains Council, Grain Growers of Canada]

Good morning, members of Parliament, staff, and fellow guests.

My name is Monique McTiernan. I am the executive director of the Atlantic Grains Council, and until recently I was also the chief grain grader of the New Brunswick Grain Commission. I live in Riverview, New Brunswick.

Since its incorporation in 1984, the Atlantic Grains Council has been the only voice representing maritime grain and oilseed producers on regional and national issues. Council members consist of grain and oilseed producers, processors, handlers, traders, input suppliers, shippers, and researchers. The council is also a founding member of the Grain Growers of Canada.

To improve the competitiveness of maritime agriculture, there are a couple of key issues we need to address. These issues were identified and prioritized at our recent Atlantic grain and oilseeds strategy workshop.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Could we just ask you to slow down a little bit for our translators?

Thank you.

[Monique McTiernan]

These issues were identified and prioritized at our recent Atlantic grain and oilseeds strategy workshop and have been communicated to Minister Ritz and the maritime agriculture ministers.

Number one is agriculture infrastructure. Farmers have not updated their grain storage, drying, or handling facilities in many years because of the low grain prices we have suffered. Upgrading on farms and in commercial facilities will allow producers to profitably condition and store their products so they won't have to sell at harvest time. It will also help farmers to grow and store new crops and to IP for new value-added products, such as, for example, non-GMO soybeans for the premium Japanese market. Solutions to assist us could include infrastructure money, interest-free loans, and accelerated capital cost allowances, as was done for computer purchases in the last federal budget.

Our number two issue is research. Because the Maritimes have traditionally been viewed as a small market, the private sector has not made significant investments in crop varieties suited to our unique needs. Agriculture Canada scientists have therefore played a critical role in the development of agriculture in our region. Key agriculture research stations in the region are located in Fredericton, Kentville, Nappan, and Charlottetown. But since 1995, we have seen the erosion of this research, and we have dropped from 28 research scientists to only five per region. At the moment, there is only one research station and one research scientist doing any cereal and oilseed work in Atlantic Canada.

We are a small region with a very specific maritime climate. Thus, varieties that may do well in the west or even in Quebec and Ontario may not yield the same here because of our short growing season. We import a lot of grain today, but with proper research, we could be more self-sufficient.

Our number three issue is Fusarium head blight. This devastating disease thrives very well in our cool, moist climate and is destroying our small grain industry in the Maritimes. We are currently in our fourth year of a severe epidemic of Fusarium. The Fusarium species affecting us is far more toxic than it is in the rest of Canada.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

The translator is asking if you could slow down just a bit. I'm sorry about that. Don't feel bad about it. I want everybody to be able to hear.

Thanks.

[Monique McTiernan]

For the long term, we need a resistant variety, but we all know the length of time required to breed varieties. Pathology work is needed as well as grower education on using agronomic practices to mitigate losses.

The losses will not be limited to grain farmers. Without good-quality feed grain, it will be impossible to have a vibrant red meat or any livestock industry in our region. One example of the lost market, which paid a premium to farmers, is the salmon fishery. We used to sell our wheat in local feed mills, which processed our grain into fish feed, but due to the Fusarium, all the grain is now imported. We have completely lost that market.

We are a small market, and our farmers need to take advantage of every opportunity.

To summarize, the key priorities of the Atlantic grain and oilseed farmers are the following: agriculture infrastructure, both on farm and commercial,

public research on agronomic and yield increases,

and Fusarium head blight resistant and control,

The council appreciates the opportunity to make this presentation on helping us build a stronger Atlantic agriculture industry.

Thank you. I look forward to your questions.

[Richard Phillips]

Thank you.

I will speak more slowly, because I'm from Saskatchewan, where we're still debating whether the extra hour of daylight with daylight saving time will hurt our crops.

My name is Richard Phillips. I am from Tisdale, Saskatchewan.

I'm employed by the Grain Growers of Canada.

On the issue of competitiveness of Canadian grains, oilseeds, and pulse producers in the world, I will reiterate what you've heard from many people today and what you've heard from many speakers before us: that is the need for public research. Clusters are proposed, and they're talking about private partnerships. We see potential in those, but at the end of the day we still see a big need for A-base research, which is your base agronomic research, whether it's for the Maritimes or the Prairies. You will see that in the cereal grains and the pulse crops especially, where there isn't a place for the private sector to put money in and get money out. At the end of the day, the private sector will invest where they can get a return on their money. Because we believe in farm-saved seed, and people will save seeds in their cereal grains, the private sector will not likely ever invest major dollars at this point in time or for the foreseeable future in those grains.

Ag Canada does a tremendous job, and we thank the government. There were some recent announcements for some investments in research facilities, but as we know from the prairie oat growers, the Cereal Research Centre in Winnipeg is nearly a condemned building. So we need more money and more commitment to that public research.

It's not just the cereal grains; it's shattering in canola as well. There are things like pulse-cereal rotations. For those of you who may not be farmers, if you plant a pulse crop and it's inoculated and you grow a cereal grain after it, the nitrogen that's fixed by the pulse crop will help improve the yield. So what is the right combination of those crops? We could actually save money as farmers on fertilizer use, for example, if we could have the right combination of crops in rotation.

There's no role for the private sector in that sort of research. Those will always have to be public dollars. However, we as producers are willing to step up to the plate. We have check-offs on many of our crops. Many of the organizations here, the farmers at this table, are putting money into check-offs. The Canadian Wheat Board works with, say, the Alberta Barley Commission funding research. Farmers are prepared to step up to the plate, but we want to be partners with the government on that base agronomic research that is critical to us.

Briefly, on a couple of other issues, in terms of trade we're strongly in favour of moving ahead on the EU deal. Moving into the North African market, the EFTA market, and Peru, some of the initiatives undertaken are good for those of us who rely on the export markets.

As maybe a small critique of the government, we're more than 13 months into the Growing Forward program and we have only one major program announced so far. We would strongly encourage the government to move ahead quickly, because producers are looking for that. What are the tools and programs we can use to take ourselves to the next level in competitiveness?

Biotechnology based on sound science is critical, going ahead.

I really look forward to the question and answer period where we can talk more about some of the issues around the Canadian Wheat Board. There are a wide range of opinions out there. I would say that a lot of producers believe, though, that at the end of the day producers should have a say in determining their own marketing structures.

In line with that, we actually wrote to the Wheat Board earlier this week. I have a copy of the letter here. We've asked to meet with the Wheat Board, to sit down and talk about these farmer director elections. Every time there is an election, there are disputes, whether it's from people who like the Wheat Board or people who don't like the Wheat Board. There are always disputes over voters lists, who's getting them, where the home quarter is, or if the person is in the right district.

So we'd like to sit down with the Wheat Board. There was an expert panel put together about three years ago that reported back in about late 2005 with 14 recommendations. If the grain growers and the Wheat Board sit down together, I think we'll probably come back to this committee or to Parliament with a series of recommendations to clean this up. Clean elections are in the farmers' interests. It's in the Wheat Board's interest to know that those are valid elections. Together we hope to come up with some solutions.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Thanks very much to all of you for keeping under the time. We appreciate that.

I'll now move to questioning, with seven-minute rounds.

Mr. Easter.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, folks, for coming. We've seen a couple of you before. A couple of your organizations have been here previously.

My first question is to Mr. Bender. What is the membership now of the Western Canadian Wheat Growers? What's the number?

[Kevin Bender]

I'll refer you to Blair. He's our executive director.

[Blair Rutter, Executive Director, Western Canadian Wheat Growers Association]

Thank you for the question. This is the same question we got a month and a half ago. Our answer is still the same. I will say that we have infinitely more voluntary members than the Canadian Wheat Board.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

So your membership is really less than 1,000? Do I take it that's what it still is? Has it increased since the last time you were here, which was three or four weeks ago?

[Blair Rutter]

No, it's the same. We do our membership run in January.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

But you are here for the second time before this committee. I want to point out for the record that at this session today—and I call it as I see it—we are doing a study on competitiveness. One of our reasons for bringing the Canadian Wheat Board before the committee as a witness was to deal with the competitiveness question from a marketing point of view. How do they make producers more competitive?

We've heard remarks from the Western Canadian Wheat Growers Association, representing less than 1,000 farmers. We've also heard from the Grain Growers of Canada, who were always here before. I submit to you both that you're here for a reason—to try to provide some background. The members of the government will attempt to go on a witch hunt against the Canadian Wheat Board at this session today. The government's questions will not be about competitiveness; they will be attempting to attack the Canadian Wheat Board, as they've done a number of times. They just cannot seem to accept on the government side—

[Steven Blaney, Conservative, Lévis—Bellechasse, QC]

I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.

I just listened to the witnesses, and they were comparing prices and the competitiveness patterns. I think the content pertained to the study of this committee.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

That's not a point of order.

Back to you, Mr. Easter.