Mr. Speaker, although the Liberals promised to keep marketing boards, the Crow benefit and branch lines, they have already gotten rid of two of those three pillars of their policy. When confronted with their duplicity they say that the international agreements made them do it. However, during the election they said they would not sign those agreements.
Now the Liberal government has offered up marketing boards on the sacrificial altar of free trade for the 1999 round. Canadian officials did not have to call them state trading entities but they did. The government did not have to sign onto the agenda but it did.
Unfortunately for Canadian farmers who want to keep single desk selling, our officials have willingly taken the poison to kill the boards and now we find there is no antidote. What is worse, no one inside the government seems to be looking for one.