Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Malcolm, part of the problem here is the government members, especially the minister and the parliamentary secretary. Even though they use the resources of the government to try to propagandize, they could never get the directors they wanted elected. You have a pro-single-desk director in the minister's riding and a pro-single-desk director in the parliamentary secretary's riding.
The only way they can get their own people in place is to shove democracy down and use the big hand of government to violate section 47.1 of the Canadian Wheat Board Act, fire the directors that are there, and put their own people in place. That's what we're seeing happening here.
I find it amazing that this government is talking about getting the big hand of government out of the farm community and letting farmers run their own business. What we're getting from this government is the direct opposite. We're getting appointed directors who are not only appointed but controlled by Ottawa. We've seen the memos that came out from Chuck Strahl when he was minister: putting gag orders on the board, firing Adrian Meisner.... The list goes on and on and on.
We heard the minister here last night. I'll not get into it, but the minister provided a substantial amount of misinformation. Here he is, invited to the board several times, but he never took them up on it. But he said the direct opposite, sitting in that chair last night.
So how is this board going to be run? By farmers for farmers? Absolutely not. The directors are appointed by the government in Ottawa. The board will be micromanaged by the minister from Ottawa and farmers don't have a say.
The parliamentary secretary wouldn't dare suggest that they're going to have meetings in the country. He wouldn't commit to that so that we'd have it on the record and could hold them to account. Instead, it's going to be this tight little circle of their friends running the Canadian Wheat Board and running it into the ground. The assets that are there, the assets that that board has, it's just like they've been picked up with a big government crane that is taking those farm assets and using them for somebody else's advantage.
I found it astounding, Mr. Martin, when you were talking about prices—