They voted on the advisory board. I thank the hon. member for bringing that out. I do not have Mr. Harder, the advisory board chairman, in my riding but I was interested in what kind of accountability and prestige he had in his riding. I went to the returning officer and checked the figures on the votes the Liberals and the NDP got in the two polls where Mr. Harder, the big defender of the wheat board, was working against Reform tooth and nail. The results were 25 for the Liberals, 78 for Reform, 18 for the Liberals and 72 for Reform. That is democracy.
There was a flood in Manitoba. It was very interesting when they were campaigning. All of a sudden I saw Liberals waving $5,000 cheques and saying “Vote for the Liberals and you will get compensation. Just vote for us”. There were 12 Liberal candidates in Manitoba and 6 of them floated down the Red River with their $5,000 cheques. They are gone, gone for good. That is what I call democracy. That is accountability. If we do not deliver what we say then down the river and out into the lake.
Farmers in western Canada want equality. They want accountability. They want democracy. They want the option of a voluntary wheat board, a single desk or open market. That is all they ask. When we look at the CTV- Maclean's poll, farmers are in the most honourable profession in Canada. Let us look where politicians are: right on the bottom just above lawyers. It is accountability when they are placed according to order.
It has been a real nice experience to listen to the debate today. I hope they will ask me for the judgment of Judge Huband to read how accountable the wheat board is. When the wheat board mandate is only to get rid of grain no matter what the price that is not accountability. Accountability is to get a fair market price distributed to each farmer. If the wheat board is not prepared to do that it should get out of the business. Everybody else will do it.
We can look at the canola industry, the flax industry and the rye industry. Farmers are moving them. They are getting decent prices. They are progressing. Look at the wheat board grains. They are going down, down, down. Very soon we will not have any wheat with which to make our bread. That is what is happening to wheat board grains.
We recently had a provincial byelection in Portage. It is Portage—Lisgar for the information of the hon. member for Winnipeg South. Reform got over 15% of the votes without a party to back it up, just behind the Liberals. Not only did we do well, we got rid of another two Liberal MLAs in the legislature. They resigned because they were so disillusioned with the lousy political system.