Of course, if we keep going in that same direction, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Natural Resources, I believe from the province of Newfoundland, I doubt has ever sold a bushel of wheat in his life as well.
The minister of agriculture, engaged in the profession of agriculture, enjoys a wheat board fully elected and fully accountable, yet he wishes to impose something different on the farmers of western Canada.
I think it is a question of credibility of those who speak and what they are trying to impose on others that they would not impose on themselves. I think that is an important point to make.
The Minister of Natural Resources and the Minister responsible for the Canadian Wheat Board, being from the prairies at least gives him some credibility, but I would question whether the minister has ever sold a bushel of wheat in his life.
I have to perhaps forgive the government a little bit there because truly Liberals on the Canadian prairies are becoming as scarce as prairie chickens on the prairies these days. I have to understand the limited choice the government had when they chose.
I also want to respond to the comments by the hon. member for Hamilton—Wentworth about the preamble not being important. As one of my colleagues pointed out, the courts have long been famous for using the preamble to determine the intention of the legislation when they are drafting the bill. I do not think there is anywhere where that is more apparent than in the courts and the rewriting of the Canadian human rights bill.
Certainly an effort to clarify the intention of the legislatures in the preamble would be taken into consideration and an is an extremely important point and not to be ignored. Our intention is not smoke and mirrors. It is certainly honourable.
I have to also question the effort by the government through this bill to protect from legal action the officers of the Canadian Wheat Board and the secrecy, the lack of accountability through access to information or the auditor general. I think this effort to protect the officers of the board in good measure is a result of the actions of my colleague from Portage—Lisgar in his efforts to bring some accountability and transparency to the board. I do not think that there is really support for those kinds of actions.
Because of the lack of time, I simply say in conclusion that, in all sincerity, we are not asking for anything in this Wheat Board Act that producers in the rest of Canada do not have already. In the interest of fairness, I think it would be reasonable to provide some accountability, some transparency to a board that works for the farmers.