Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his question. On his statement that there are so many sellers, 125,000 farmers, and so few buyers, under the system we are operating right now in the Canadian Wheat Board area and in Ontario there is only one buyer. That is true under the system we are under.
However, if we give farmers a choice there are many buyers. There are buyers around the world. The problem in the past and the reason we have had a build-up of wheat in the past is that the market signals are not getting through this Canadian Wheat Board bureaucracy and its secretive behaviour and operations to the farmers.
Farmers were not getting the signals as to how much grain they should be growing. For years they grew too much wheat for the market. As a result anywhere between two thirds and a third of the wheat they grew was being dumped on the world market, dumped below the cost of production and dumped at a price lower than the selling price in Canada. That is what happened because of the lack of market signals due to the secrecy of the Canadian Wheat Board. That is part of what we are asking to change. Open it up, give farmers the signals and let farmers find their own markets because they will have the signals then. They will know what they should be producing.
Farmers are very flexible now. They can go from wheat to other grains. They have shown that. They have done it. In our area they grow specialty crops, canola, lentils, peas, hemp, and I am not talking about cannabis; I am talking about the legal stuff. They will grow whatever they can that is legal to make a living. That is part of the answer.
In Ontario they are still unfortunately affected by the Canadian Wheat Board. The Ontario Wheat Board however has elected people running the board. Elected directors run the board. That is one of the things I think farmers would ask for with the Canadian Wheat Board. Let us fix the Canadian Wheat Board by giving farmers control over their own organization as they have in Ontario.
I have been down to southern Ontario quite a few times over the past couple of years. I have found a revolt in southern Ontario against the monopoly of the Ontario Wheat Board. It is just as strong there as it is in the west. The problem is their democratic system is not working very well but they are going to make it work. They are replacing one by one the old directors with some new directors who really want to open up the market which is exactly what we are asking for in this motion.
I think farmers in Ontario want exactly what farmers in the west want. I think we are speaking for farmers in Ontario as well farmers in the west.