Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to rise to speak on this topic, the most important topic in my entire constituency. Interest in the bill is growing and growing and growing every week.
I wish to alert members to a statement once made by Edmund Burke. He said that the people never give up their liberties except under some delusions. Ever since the wheat board began it presented a delusion to many western Canadian farmers.
The hon. member for Yorkton—Melville emphasized the use of the word maximizing. If the returns to the farmers of western Canada are to be maximized, it involves another component, transportation. We will talk about that later.
I want to read to the House a statement made by a lawyer employed by the Canadian Wheat Board. This was before the Manitoba Court of Appeal.
I want to note carefully what he had to say: “To dispose of grain in the best interest of the federal government the wheat board has no obligation to obtain the best prices for the farmers”. That is what a lawyer for the Canadian Wheat Board had to say. You come west and try to sell the Canadian Wheat Board with statements like that.
Less than three months ago we had a major dumping of Canadian grain into the Iranian market at $15 a tonne less than the world price. We only found out about that just a few days ago. When the wheat board tells you that it has no obligation to maximize the return to the prairie farmers, that they exist only for the benefit for the government, at least it is speaking the truth.
The wheat board has its annual report out. I would like to read a few statements from that annual report. Historically the Canadian Wheat Board at numerous times has not marketed grain to ensure the maximum return to the farmers. Now hear what it had to say: “All proceeds from sales, less Canadian Wheat Board marketing costs, are passed on to the farmers”. If it is operating totally on behalf of the farmers then they had better take a look at what they are trying to do in Bill C-4. If the farmer is smart enough to grow the grain, he is smart enough to market the grain. This is phoney thing between five members, ten members, do not go out west and say that you democratized the wheat board. They will laugh right in your face. We all know what is going to happen.
A few years ago we had two very learned people who did a lot of work on this. I would like to read what they had to say: “Until World War II the Canadian Wheat Board was a government owned agency with a mandate to operate in the best interests of the producers”. That is before World War II. The next point is: “The role, structure and powers of the Canadian Wheat Board changed drastically during the war. It became the federal government's chief means of controlling wheat prices”.
The wheat board is in a position and it is attempting to control prices, not to do what my hon. member has in this amendment, maximize the prices. It has not been the responsibility—and we have enough evidence that it has not always sought out to operate in the best interests.
Let me read again from this report: “Its main aim was to limit grain price increases so as to safeguard the government's wage and price controls”. Who paid that price? The farmers paid that price and they paid heavily for that.
Point three: “When world market conditions began to push up wheat prices in 1943 the government granted the Canadian Wheat Board its monopoly powers to enable it to impose strict controls over grain prices”. The Canadian Wheat Board is doing exactly the same thing today.
This report, which came from two eminent scholars, said further: “The Canadian Wheat Board was the government's instrument of choice in the immediate post-war period to control wheat prices—into a peacetime market economy”.
Finally, it says that both Liberal and the Conservative governments extended the Canadian Wheat Board monopoly because they viewed wheat as a national strategy measure. Only wheat was used in this way both the Liberal government and the Conservative government. They used the wheat of the hardworking prairie farmers to the benefit not of the prairie farmers. That was not utmost in their minds.
I look at the dumping practices of the wheat board today and it is not accountable and it does not know where the grain is going. The farmer, like the hon. member, at least knew where the grain was going. We do not know where it is going. It dumps wheat on to a foreign market where there is no competition and sells it for less money. That is a terrible shame, and it exists today.
I want to draw attention also to the control of the grain industry by the government. We read that lawyers have said that the first responsibility of the Canadian Wheat Board is to the government and the producers are secondary. We out west are tired of that attitude. We are fed up.
Let me read: “Control of the grain trade by a government agency was consistent with the aims of those Canadian bureaucrats who were dictated to introducing the principles of Keynesian economics into the regulation of the Canadian marketplace”.
I know what the hon. member said. I know that people are saying that the act was made in Ottawa and therefore it must be good. Do not be fooled. They never adopted one single principle of the strategy committee that came before them. Not one principle is embedded in this new act. They predetermined what the act was going to be. They went through the phoney stage of talking to people. The bill is before us now without one single recommendation from the advisory board.
I say that this Canadian Wheat Board bill that we have today is going to do one thing for sure if it is passed. The number of people opposed to the monopoly of the grain market industry, the number of producers, is going to drop, drop, drop until we reach a real revolution on the prairies because of the government's monopoly in this bill.
I wish everybody opposite would come out to the prairies, talk to the people. It is a crying shame that an industry that brings billions and billions of dollars into this country cannot even control itself. The big bad government controls it.
It is a terrible shame. I beg them to read the bill and not to support it.