Thank you, Mr. Chair, for the opportunity to be here today. I don't have my presentation translated, but it will be coming shortly. I do have copies in English if anyone would like a copy after the meeting.
By way of introduction, the Friends of the Canadian Wheat Board was formed back in 2006 to facilitate opposition to the illegal order in council intended to remove barley from the jurisdiction of the Canadian Wheat Board. The successful court action launched by the friends at that time resulted in more than $400 million extra being distributed to western barley farmers over the next four years.
My purpose here today is really to request that the Government of Canada act on recommendation number 48 that was passed by the finance committee back in March of this year. That recommendation read:
The federal government provide Western Canadian grains and oilseed farmers with a full and transparent accounting of the disposition of the Canadian Wheat Board’s assets since the Marketing Freedom for Grain Farmers Act received Royal Assent, and of the effects on the grain handling and marketing system since that time.
The reasons this is important is that during the destruction and subsequent give-away of the Canadian Wheat Board to foreign interests, the Conservative government of the day went to great lengths to confuse the public and farmers about the value of the Canadian Wheat Board and the amount of taxpayer money that was gifted to foreign beneficiaries. The examples that I will use this morning come from documents. The first one that I have with me is a letter by Conservative member of Parliament Leon Benoit to a constituent. This letter was dated October 29, 2014. There are many false statements in this letter. In the second paragraph, Mr. Benoit says:
The Canadian Wheat Board never owned the 3400 rail cars. Those actually belonged to the Canadian Grain Commission on behalf of the government, and the Canadian Wheat Board only painted its logo on them.
On May 10 of this year, a man named Mr. Greg Meredith appeared as a witness before this committee. I have with me his comments that are in the committee evidence. Mr. Meredith is self-described as "the policy lead on the removal of the single desk and the eventual commercialization of the Canadian Wheat Board". In paragraph 3, Mr. Meredith says:
The hopper cars likewise had debts secured against them; even though they were donated by the Government of Canada they used these as equity to build the corporation.
The third page I have with me today is page 59 of the audited annual report of the Canadian Wheat Board for 2011-12. The text says that “The Corporation purchased 2,000 hopper cars in 1979/80" and that "The corporation purchased an additional 1663 cars...in 2005/06". In short, the audited annual report says that farmers' grain purchased all the hopper cars operated by the Canadian Wheat Board and that the net book value of these cars was $34.5 million at the end of July 2012.
The Conservative MP says that the hopper cars were never owned by the Canadian Wheat Board, but rather by the Canadian Grain Commission. The policy lead on the destruction of the Canadian Wheat Board told this committee that the hopper cars were donated to the Canadian Wheat Board by the government; and the Canadian Wheat Board itself, in an audited statement produced solely by directors that had been appointed by then Minister Ritz, says that in fact farmers' grain paid for these hopper cars, owned by the Canadian Wheat Board with a net book value of $34.5 million.
That's three different versions of the same story. This example alone underscores why it is imperative that your recommendation number 48 be followed.
Secondly, there are hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars unaccounted for. In the summer of 2011, before any new Canadian Wheat Board legislation was tabled, an internal analysis conducted by the Canadian Wheat Board showed that a complete dismantling of the board, as what happened, would result in restructuring costs in the order of $400 million. This number was publicly disputed by then Minister Ritz, but the audited annual report of the Canadian Wheat Board for 2011-12 showed that the government did transfer $177 million of taxpayer money over to the Ritz CWB in 2012. Online government estimates seemed to show that large sums of taxpayer money were transferred to the Ritz CWB in the following years, 2013 and 2014, but Minister Ritz refused to table any financial numbers for the Canadian Wheat Board after 2011-12. It is possible that $400 million or more of taxpayer money was in this way transferred ultimately to foreign interests, namely the Government of Saudi Arabia and the multinational grain company Bunge. How many taxpayer dollars were used to prop up the Ritz CWB before they were gifted to foreign interests? Again, taxpayers and farmers have a right to know, and the remedy would be the implementation of recommendation 48.
The third and last example goes back briefly to Mr. Meredith's statement to this committee on May 10, 2016. He says that “the building was encumbered to slightly more than $1 million or $2 million than its worth.”
They're talking about the Wheat Board building. The building is still there, at 423 Main Street in Winnipeg.
He said that the building was encumbered to more than its worth. Lawyers acting on behalf of the Friends of the Canadian Wheat Board have conducted a land titles search for the encumbrances mentioned by Mr. Meredith, and those lawyers have found that no mortgage was ever registered against that building while it was owned by the old CWB or the Ritz CWB.
The Benoit letter said, talking about the same building, “the old CWB had no net assets”, but that they leased the buildings. The audited annual report of the Canadian Wheat Board from 2011-12 said that the Wheat Board did own the building, and the net book value was listed at $13 million.
Again, there are three completely different stories coming from these two examples.
The previous government and its MPs did everything possible to devalue and undervalue the Canadian Wheat Board's farmer-paid assets. By refusing to release any financial information after 2011-12, the previous government was involved in a deliberate cover-up.
The current government included transparency as a cornerstone of its election platform. Ministerial mandate letters included specific directions regarding transparency. Nowhere is this transparency more vital than with the Canadian Wheat Board issue. A refusal to act on recommendation 48 would simply mean carrying on with the cover-up initiated by the previous government.
I look forward to any questions.