Mr. Speaker, I would like to clarify one important thing for my colleague who who has just spoken.
The Canadian Wheat Board and the movement and selling of grain has never been subsidized, never since the beginning of the Canadian Wheat Board. The contingency fund is not a subsidy fund. It is a fund that the western Canadian farmer eventually pays if he does not pay it up front. I want to make that clear.
When I began my study of this, I went back and read two very important books on the history and origin of the Canadian Wheat Board. Depending on the history book, the origin of the board and the purpose for its beginning are dubious. But this is 1997 and we are soon going into a new year, soon going into a new century and we are still trying to move grain under a board which is completely out of date.
Today there is a whole new generation of farmers. These young people do not have just $20,000 invested. Many of them have $3 million and $4 million invested. They know what is going on in the country and what is taking place with sales around the world. They know when the Canadian Wheat Board is selling grain. They know that they are being taken.
I want to say that all but two letters that have crossed my desk have stated that people are very afraid of this new bill. Why are they afraid? It is because of the inclusion clause. Western Canadians are afraid of the inclusion clause.
Some may argue that if they want in or out, they have to have the same regulations. They got out of the business of growing wheat for the simple reason that they did not want to be mastered by a wheat board which was made in Ottawa, not made in western Canada.
It is a real fear that they have. We have a new era of farmers. They are going out. They are growing different crops. The real fear of the young person who is coming on is what they are doing in the way of specialty crops such as the canola crop flats and so on. Some dingbat of an organization is going to give them the idea, let us include it and put it to some phoney vote, and I want to say phoney. Every person in western Canada would tell you that the latest vote was a phoney. It was phoney because it was an all or nothing at all vote.
While those people will tell you that it was a major victory for the wheat board, it was a major disgrace for the wheat board. It was 37%. I would like to tell you if that same vote was held today it would be 47%. In a year's time it will be 57% if the government continues with Bill C-4 the way it is.
They are going to kill themselves. Do not blame the Reform Party for that. Blame nobody but yourself. We are the new era of transportation. We have huge boats that come in the harbour of Prince Rupert. Most important, western Canada should now have the right to dictate where its grain is going and to what transport facility. Whatever brings the most dollars back to the farmers of the west, that is the route the grain should go. If we can fill the terminals in Halifax and in Montreal by going through a cheaper route, then it is the God-given right of western producers to have their grain sent that way.