Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to be speaking today in support of the motion presented by the hon. member for Wild Rose:
That, in the opinion of this House, wheat and barley producers in western Canada should be given greater flexibility and more choices by amending the Canadian Wheat Board Act to include a special two year opting out provision for those farmers interested in developing niche export markets.
I thank the hon. member for bringing this up. I am not saying this is necessarily the only way we can deal with the end of the Canadian Wheat Board monopoly, which is what many farmers are asking for. But this certainly is one alternative that should be debated. Before I get into that debate I will comment on some of the comments by the hon. member from the Bloc who just spoke.
He asked why we were not debating something important. I have barley in the bin and out in the filed to be sold right now. To me this issue is important. I have neighbours who have barley in the field and barley to be sold. To them this issue is very important. In fact, to thousands and thousands of western Canadian farmers this issue is very important.
I have come to know the hon. member from the Bloc and I have gained some respect for him over the past three years, but I find it absolutely unbelievable that he would brush this issue off as an issue that is not important. It is important. It is important to many western Canadian farmers.
Back to the motion at hand, I would like to ask some questions. For example, why is the minister of agriculture denying farmers a third option on the ballot that will give farmers a chance to speak in the plebiscite promised by the minister?
In this plebiscite only two options are offered to farmers. I will read the questions and make clear what these two options are. Then I will talk about a third option which should be on the ballot. The first option is the open market option which is stated as follows: "Remove all barley, both feed and malting food, from the Canadian Wheat Board and place it entirely on the open market for all domestic and export sales". That is the first option and that is the wording the minister will use to present this option.
The second option is the single seller option: "Maintain the Canadian Wheat Board as a single desk seller for all barley, both feed and malting food, with the continuing exception of feed barley sold domestically".
Those options are two out of the three options that should be on this ballot. Unfortunately the minister has denied western Canadian farmers the option that a vast majority of them would choose. I know this not only from polling I have done on my own, not only from the polling of other Reform members in their own constituencies, but from other polls that have been commissioned on this issue. Poll after poll has shown that a majority of Canadian farmers if given the choice would choose the dual marketing option or the voluntary board option, call it what you like.
In a plebiscite held in Alberta about a year ago, when the question was put to western Canadian farmers, two-thirds of the farmers in Alberta chose the voluntary board or the dual marketing option.
This issue has been decided in Alberta already. It should be put to plebiscite for the benefit of farmers in Saskatchewan and Manitoba. However, let us present the option that farmers would choose. What kind of nonsense is this, offering only two options which will split western Canadian farmers and pit family against family? Only asking the two questions will do that.
How will farmers handle having only the two options presented? I cannot say for sure but I can make a pretty good guess. My guess is that farmers, on recognizing that the dual marketing option is not available, may choose the open market option. In that case the wheat board will no longer be handling barley sales at all. That is not what I want, that is not what other Reform MPs want and it is not what farmers across western Canada want. They want the freedom to choose to market their barley through the Canadian Wheat Board, through a pooling system, or to market it on their own or through a private grain company. That is the third option which is not on the ballot of the minister of agriculture.
I am afraid, because that option is not on the ballot, that farmers in western Canada might be denied the pooling option, an option which I know some of them want. That is nonsense.
Why did the minister not put this third option on the ballot? I cannot answer that question for sure but it concerns me greatly that he did not offer it. Would not the proper way to handle this issue be to present the three options? The reason the minister of agriculture gives for not putting that voluntary board or dual marketing option on the plebiscite is that it would not work. Would not the proper way to handle this issue be to put it on the ballot and to have a debate across western Canada? The minister, the wheat board and other people who argue that a dual marketing system would not work could debate that option. They could say: "We do not think that option would work for these reasons". That is a point of debate.
On the other hand, I could argue that it would work and that is what I would do during the debate leading up to the plebiscite. I would argue that in fact the Canadian Wheat Board, when it was set up, was a voluntary board. The dual marketing system was in place from the time the board was first set up in the twenties and re-established in the thirties. The voluntary board or the dual marketing option was only taken away from farmers under the War Measures Act in 1943. That was done so the Canadian government could obtain for the war effort grain at the lowest price possible. Canadian farmers allowed that because they wanted to help with
the war. They were promised compensation later which they never received.
Why do we still have a monopoly situation today when it was only put in place under the War Measures Act? It is to get cheap grain. I would argue in the debate leading up to the plebiscite that the dual market system worked well before the monopoly was put in place and that it would work well now.
I want to make it as clear as I can that I favour keeping the Canadian Wheat Board. It is very useful. However, I favour giving farmers a choice. Surely in country like this no one could argue seriously that farmers who put all of the money, the sweat and the work into producing their grain should not have the freedom to choose how to market that grain. Yet, that is what the government and the minister are arguing against all common sense. It makes no sense whatsoever.
I have so much that I want to say on this issue, but I see that my time is coming to a close. However, if I may, I would like to again make it clear what I am arguing for here.
The hon. member for Wild Rose is asking that farmers be given the chance to opt out over a two-year period. It is one way of ending the wheat board monopoly. But there are other ways the monopoly could be ended and make it work effectively.
One way would be to offer deferred delivery contracts such as that which grain companies now offer to farmers, unlike the Canadian Wheat Board contracts that are in place now which do not guarantee a price for the commodity and do not guarantee delivery by a certain date. It is a one-sided contract.
The deferred delivery contract which farmers use for canola, peas, or other crops of choice, stipulates that farmers will deliver a certain number of bushels or tonnes of the commodity to a specified delivery point for such a price on such a date. The grain company promises to take delivery at the specified price, destination and date. That is another way to end the monopoly of the board.
A third way is by offering contracts, committing a certain number of tonnes or bushels to the board so that the board would know exactly what it will be working with before the actual marketing. That commitment can be made some time in advance and staged in. That is another way to deal with the issue. Give farmers a choice. I cannot believe that the government in good conscience can continue to deny farmers the choice on how to market their grain.
In conclusion, I want to again thank the hon. member for Wild Rose for his motion and say that I support it as one way to deal with ending the monopoly of the wheat board. I also point out that there are other ways of dealing with the situation. I say very clearly that a voluntary board has worked before, a dual marketing system has worked before, and it will work again. I ask the minister to examine this again.