Madam Speaker, I am pleased to speak to the bill. It appears the government is trying to ram through a bill that will strengthen the dictatorial powers of the Canadian Wheat Board and will give it a tremendous amount of power to operate within a scope that is pleasing to it.
I am not from a prairie part of the country, but it has always been my assumption that the Canadian Wheat Board had a responsibility to operate in the best interest of prairie wheat farmers. If this is the case certainly the bill we are debating today does not do that. It gives the Canadian Wheat Board the power to operate in the best interest of itself and of its political influence in the House.
The government of the day is dominated by members from the province of Ontario and other provinces that are not involved with the Canadian Wheat Board. They have a lot of authority in the debate and will have the power of the vote by sheer numbers. The government is influenced by a part of the country that has no particular interest in the Canadian Wheat Board because it does not apply to the growing of grains in those other provinces. They will ram through a bill that will impose a detrimental effect on wheat farmers on the prairies and in the west.
I have some personal knowledge of the operation of the Canadian Wheat Board. I return for a moment to the fact that it should be assumed the purpose of the Canadian Wheat Board is to get the best possible price for grain products for prairie farmers.
If that is the case it would only seem logical the wheat board would be willing to sell products on behalf of farmers in a manner that would be in the best interest of farmers, which means whoever approaches with a proposition that would bring a good price for the product.
From second hand experience I know that over the last three years the Canadian Wheat Board was approached to supply large quantities of barley and grain at the top level of pricing for the day. These were to be cash deals. There was no government to government financing involved. It was cash on the barrel head.
The Canadian Wheat Board would not supply the product. It would not take the products it had in the elevators and sell it through this additional source of marketing for cash money at a higher than average price.
To make matters worse, I have absolute knowledge that the sales offered to the Canadian Wheat Board never went through any of the other sources of established marketing of the Canadian Wheat Board. They were lost to other countries that supplied the same product to customers willing to pay cash to the Canadian Wheat Board, if it would sell it, but it would not sell it.
They not only lost several cash deals. They not only lost finding another source of marketing for their product in addition to what they already had. They not only lost the opportunity to have a clean sale with no government financing required. They lost the sale, period. It never happened. The purchase went to another country.
I have been in business all my life, not in the grain business but in business. If those in the private sector have a product to sell, they want to sell it where they get the best price for it, the cleanest deal and the best benefit for their business. Certainly that is not the case with the Canadian Wheat Board. It cannot be the case with the Canadian Wheat Board based on the examples I have expressed today.
It begs a question. How on earth could a government, which happens to be the Liberal government of the day and the Tory government before it, support an organization like the Canadian Wheat Board which has shown by example that it does not work in the best interest of prairie farmers?
I am happy to see there are Liberal members in the House today who have a direct interest in this matter and who have a responsibility.