I'm always the last to know, it seems.
Along the same vein of injecting some fundamental democracy to this process, regardless of whether there are going to be five directors, as the current Bill C-18 calls for, or the 15 that we sought in order to maintain the status quo through the last amendment that just failed, surely we can agree that it's in the interests of basic fairness and natural justice that the directors are, in fact, elected by the producers in accordance with the regulations that are set out after the fact by this act.
We're calling for all directors to be elected by the producers in accordance with the regulations, and for the president to be a director and be elected by the other directors in accordance with the regulations. In other words, all 15 are elected and then those 15 elected directors elect their president. It's basic fundamental democracy.
We believe that much of Bill C-18 is an affront to democracy. We're trying to restore some substantive participation of the producers in what shell is left over of the Wheat Board. We are on the record as saying that we have no confidence, frankly, that this voluntary Wheat Board is going to survive, but we're adamant that we're going to fight to the end to make sure that it is in its best possible shape, and that it is fair and democratic to the producers.
When I say that I suspect that the voluntary board will likely not be able to survive, I want to show you some of the very, very little bit of empirical evidence that has been made available to us as to how the Wheat Board has performed in times when they haven't had a single desk, when it has been voluntary.
This is a graph of the prices farmers were getting for their grain from 1917 to 1945, where it went through five different--