Mr. Speaker, I do not know at what point the translators may have been cut off. I will backtrack just a bit. I read the portion of the amendment which I feel is most important and I stated that I feel this is extremely important because it places fiduciary responsibility on the board to act in the best interests of farmers.
About six weeks ago a three-justice panel of the Manitoba Court of Appeal ruled that the Canadian Wheat Board has no fiduciary duty to make the best possible deals on farmers' behalf or even to treat them equally and with fairness. The board's only legal obligation, according to this panel, is not to farmers but to Ottawa. This is supposed to be our board, but it has no obligation to serve us.
Anything which can be added to this bill, even if it is only in the preamble, is bound to be an improvement. The fascinating thing about Bill C-4 is that it is equally repugnant to organizations as diverse in their outlook as the National Farmers Union and the Western Canadian Wheat Growers.
I have been polling my constituents specifically on this bill to determine how the majority of them would wish me to vote on their behalf. Thanks to the brilliance of this government we now have no postal service. With no postal service I cannot complete my poll to find out how the people in my constituency would like me to vote on this bill.
However, I have done other polling on the Canadian Wheat Board with my constituents. I have also done formal scientific polling by telephone through a professional polling organization. I have a pretty good handle on how they feel.
It is regrettable that the government, with all of its grunting about going back to the people to find out what they are thinking, does not do a little more of this type of work. When it does have its road shows and it goes about to get the opinion of people on the issues of the day it is too bad it does not pay attention to the results it gets.
We have had these visitations, and I use the word advisedly, of people from Ottawa who say “We are from government, we are here to help you, we want to know what you think. Now that we know what you think, get lost”. That is the Ottawa way.
Bud the Spud over there would have us always believe that these are the people with our interests at heart. They know what is best for us poor, benighted, agricultural drones of western Canada. We do not know what is good for us but, man, Ottawa sure can show us the way.
I have polled my constituents and, to my surprise, I discovered that on one commodity, that commodity being wheat, they want in my riding to retain single desk selling. However, for barley they want dual marketing.
They did not get a chance, when the government had its famous plebiscite last January and February, to vote on that option. They got a chance to say “are we doing to have barley all onboard or all off board?” In or out. Take it or leave it. What the farmers actually would have liked was not on the ballot.