Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to rise today to speak to the second group of amendments.
As I said in my intervention on the first group, which comprised only one motion, the amendment put forward by my hon. colleague from Yorkton—Melville to create a preamble, it is very confusing. I am sure it is not only confusing to us, but it must be confusing for the viewing public to follow how these 48 amendments have been grouped. However, we will try to work our way through them.
Group No. 2 consists of three amendments. Motion No. 2 is an amendment put forward by me. Motion No. 31 was also put forward by me. Motion No. 41 was put forward by my hon. colleague from the Progressive Conservative Party.
In speaking to these three motions, Motion No. 2 quite simply would delete the clause that makes Bill C-4 binding on the provinces.
In actual fact this clause would block a province from making changes which could be demanded by the majority of farmers in that province.
The official opposition believes quite strongly that this is undemocratic. We point to a possible example in the future where one province might want to bring forward its own wheat board or wheat marketing board. For example, Alberta might choose at some time in the future to have an Alberta wheat marketing board similar in structure to what exists for the farmers in Ontario. The case can really be put that by having this binding on the provinces, this would prevent a province such as Alberta, Saskatchewan or Manitoba from doing that.
This particular clause further entrenches the inequity and the inequality of the Canadian Wheat Board. What one province is free to do, in this case Ontario has its own wheat marketing board, another province in western Canada would be denied from doing.
The second motion in Group No. 2 is motion 31, also put forward by me. It has to do with removing all the references to the contingency fund. This is where it really gets odd as to how the exact amendments are grouped. This particular amendment No. 31 goes hand in glove with amendments and Motions Nos. 25, 26 and 27 which are found in another group. All of those amendments deal with deleting any reference in Bill C-4 of the contingency fund.
At committee and while travelling throughout western Canada and speaking to farmers and farm groups in my riding and other ridings, it has become painfully obvious that the majority of farmers view this contingency fund as simply another tax on already overtaxed farmers. That is why we have put forward these four amendments that would delete any reference to the contingency fund, the farmer supported, the farmer paid for contingency fund which currently exists in Bill C-4.
It is interesting to note that one of my colleagues earlier referred to the need to survey his constituents, his farmers in his riding. He referred to the fact that he is prevented from doing this at the moment because of the postal strike.
I did survey the farmers in Prince George—Peace River when this bill's predecessor, Bill C-72, was before the House last winter. It was interesting to note that while the farmers in my riding were, as I think they are across western Canada, very split on this highly divisive issue of reform of the Canadian Wheat Board, the one thing they were not split on was the issue of the contingency fund.
The one question I asked was would you support a compulsory farmer check off to help establish a capital base for a contingency fund? An overwhelming 76.7% of respondents, the actual farmers, Canadian Wheat Board farmers in Prince George—Peace River, said no they would not support that concept.
There are other polls which other members have done and that other entities have done across western Canada that would indicate a similar conclusion. This contingency fund, as long as the Canadian Wheat Board remains mandatory, a compulsory, government state run organization which farmers do not have the chance or freedom to choose the option of marketing their product outside of the Canadian Wheat Board, farmers are going to resist very strenuously another input cost being hoisted upon them in the form of a contingency fund, especially when it is not defined in the act in Bill C-4 how much it is going to be allowed to grow to, how quickly they are going to accumulate the funds, how much it is going to be taken off every time the farmer markets wheat or barley through the board.
It is a major concern. This is why it is accompanying Motions Nos. 25, 26, 27 which are in a subsequent group. We need to pass that and remove any reference to the contingency fund. How much time do I have, Mr. Speaker?