Mr. Speaker, it is quite a lively crowd at nine o'clock. It sounds like the French party is having a French festival on the other side.
It is a pleasure for me to join the debate today on an issue which is of vital importance to tens of thousands of Canadian men and women, the Canadian grain marketing system. This is not a debate to be entered lightly or frivolously. This country's grain industry is a vital, prosperous and growing sector, a sector where farm receipts alone totalled more than $8.5 billion last year. It is the economic backbone of Canada's prairie region.
Though based in the prairies, the influence of the grain sector is felt across the country, from the flour mills of Montreal to the ports of Vancouver, to the fertilizer and farm equipment dealers in my native Saskatchewan.
I believe it would be fair to say literally hundreds of thousands of Canadian men and women depend on the grain sector, either indirectly or directly, for their livelihood and well-being.
Today's debate is not just about party politics or about an opposition party's attempting to score political points at the expense of the government. It is about institutions that helped to build the prairies. It is about the thousands of western Canadian grain producers and their families who have a very real and basic stake in what we are discussing today.
The motion we are debating in the House today calls on the government to amend the Canadian Wheat Board Act to include a special two year opting out provision permitting those prairie producers who believe they are missing market opportunities the flexibility and choice to market their wheat and barley outside the jurisdiction of the board.
I find it quite interesting that members of the party opposite have waited so long to introduce a motion on an issue about which they claim to care so deeply. Anyone who has followed the ongoing debate on western Canadian grain marketing would know that within a matter of weeks there will be a report from the prairie-wide consultation process the minister initiated.
The nine members of the Western Grain Marketing Panel consulted with producers, industry, the provinces and other concerned stakeholders about the future of the western grain
marketing system. Their findings and conclusions will be on the minister's desk within a matter of weeks. Yet members opposite would have the federal government disregard this process, discount the hard work of the panel and the contributions made by thousands of individuals and companies, and unilaterally introduce a major change in the manner in which wheat and barley are exported in Canada. I find this reasoning quite dumbfounding.
What I find even more surprising is that not only did the Reform Party make a submission to the panel, a submission which if the government were to adopt this motion would simply be tossed aside, but the submission was made by the sponsor of this motion. As Alice noted in Through the Looking Glass , it is curiouser and curiouser.
I cannot and would not want to speak for the Reform Party but I am prepared and committed to wait and see what western Canadian grain producers have to say about contemplating any changes.
This motion speaks of giving farmers a choice. It promotes the so-called dual marketing system, a system which in theory gives farmers the option of marketing grain on their own or continuing to have the Canadian Wheat Board market their produce on their behalf. Dual market proponents say they want the alternative to use the current system or not to use it as their choice. Fundamental in their line of argument is that the wheat board should remain. That is the fundamental issue and one that bears largely on this motion. Can you have your cake and eat it too?
Can the Canadian Wheat Board continue to operate successfully side by side with a free and open market? I do not know the answer to that question. I am not inclined to jump to any conclusions but my instinct would be that it is pretty tough to have both systems equally successful. Let us reserve judgment until we see what the panel has to say on the issue.
The issue of grain marketing in western Canada is one that has stirred emotion and debate for quite some time. There are farmers on both sides of the issue, some of whom are very strongly supportive of the Canadian Wheat Board system and others who hold different points of view.
In order to bring some logic, focus and coherence to the debate rather than having people shout at each other through bull horns from the back of pickup trucks, last year the minister established the Western Grain Marketing Panel to investigate on behalf of all grain producers in western Canada the issue related to the broad subject of grain marketing, one of which is obviously the marketing system of the Canadian Wheat Board.
The panel has been hard at work for many months. It held 15 public town hall meetings across the prairies to provide information and to receive input and feedback from farmers and farm organizations. It conducted three sets of formal hearings in Winnipeg, Edmonton and Regina to provide a formal opportunity for all of those with differing views to come forward with their best arguments, their best evidence for one system or another, to be subject to examination and cross-examination, and to weigh the benefits and the consequences.
The panel is now in the final stages of preparing its report. The minister expects to have that document the first week of July and he will make it public soon after. Once we have the report we will be in a much better position to make whatever future decisions are necessary with respect to grain marketing.
The Western Grain Marketing Panel review has been a process of the utmost integrity and it is a process we are committed to seeing through until the end. We wanted input from grain producers. We will not dishonour that commitment by agreeing to such a monumental change before considering their views.
I know that some individuals within the sector, possibly some within this Chamber, have criticized the panel process as being too long and too time consuming. They applaud the efforts of a small fringe group which calls itself Farmers for Justice. I prefer the name which was bestowed on that group by a letter written by one of western Canada's larger farm newspapers, Farmers for Just Us.
This group has for many months staged protests in which convoys of Canadian wheat and barley cross the border into the United States without having the required Canadian Wheat Board export licenses. These individuals may see themselves as freedom fighters or some kind of latter day Robin Hoods, stealing from the big Canadian Wheat Board, but in reality the situation is far different.
By illegally exporting grain on their own, by circumventing the Canadian Wheat Board and its pooling system, these individuals are not pooling or sharing their profits from these sales with other producers from across the prairies. What is wrong with that, some might ask.
Through the use of pooling the board ensures all western Canadian producers, whether they farm in the Red Deer Valley of Manitoba or the Peace River region of British Columbia, share and share alike in the revenues generated by their sweat and toil. This is the co-operative spirit that helped to build the prairies and it is a tradition of which all prairie residents should be justifiably proud.
A recent ruling in Manitoba has created a certain degree of confusion within the industry and has given rise to false claims and charges by some, including those on the opposite benches, that the court ruled against the Canadian Wheat Board. If I may be
permitted to quote from the judge's formal written decision it will become quite clear that nothing could be further from the truth:
This is not a case about the Canadian Wheat Board's monopoly over interprovincial and international trade in grain. This is not a case about the powers of the Canadian Wheat Board to control the export and sale of grain and to grant licences therefore. This is not a case about free enterprise in a democratic society nor is it about the benefits of marketing boards versus the benefits of free enterprise. This is not a case to resolve the apparent debate between farmer and farmer or between farmers and the government as to which is the best method to market grain. This is not a case about David versus Goliath. This is a case about a man who is alleged to have exported grain to the United States of America and, at the time he crossed the border with the grain, did not show a licence to export the grain to the appropriate customs official.
Some have criticized the government for the action it took to respond to this court ruling, action taken to restore certainty in the wake of the decision. The situation the federal government and the entire western grains industry found itself in following the judgment was intolerable and could not be left alone.
There were two apparently conflicting rulings from courts in Manitoba with respect to export procedures on wheat and barley. Producers, exporters and industry needed a degree of certainty. In order to restore that certainty, in order to make crystal clear the requirements to export wheat and barley, the federal government clarified the relevant Canadian Wheat Board regulations. Industry needed to know clearly what the rules were and that is what the federal government achieved by clarifying the regulations.
In responding to the calls from the opposite side of the House for drastic and immediate change to the wheat board, I simply ask them to urge caution. We do not change an entire grain marketing system on a whim. That is not what good government is all about. Good government is about listening to the people, listening to all sides of a debate, weighing the pros and cons, then taking action based on the best long term interests of the vast majority.
Given the current international trade agreements Canada has signed and the new rules under which we now operate, once we change the board we are stuck with the new version. We cannot change our minds if we decide after a couple of years that we do not like the new system and revert to the old way of doing things.
Any decision the government makes will be a profound and serious one requiring a thorough and serious approach and evaluation. This is a multi-billion dollar industry and its future is not to be taken lightly in the way the third party is doing. Farmers and their families who depend on the marketing of grain are depending on us.
None of what I have said should be taken to mean that the status quo is good enough. Everyone agrees there is need for some type of change and there may be change. First I simply appeal to everyone with an interest in western grain marketing to hold their arguments and their fire until the grain marketing panel is released. Unilateral action by one group or province at this stage could have far reaching consequences and a final magnitude which nobody could now possibly estimate.
Change may be coming. Make no mistake, it may be coming. But it will be considered and thoughtful change by a government that has consulted with the people who will be most affected by that change. It will not be the sort of change driven by editorial headlines and dictated by a small vocal fringe group concerned only with its own self-interest.