Mr. Speaker, today we are debating a motion to refer Bill C-72 to committee before second reading. I support that move because so much of this legislation needs to be debated and discussed before the bill is allowed to be passed.
People have three main concerns regarding the Canadian Wheat Board. The first is the lack of accountability of the board. It has a security level equal to that of CSIS. The second is that farmers do not have control of the board yet it is their money entirely that funds the operations of the board.
The third issue is that the Wheat Board has a monopoly that was only given to it under the War Measures Act but which has not been removed. Farmers want a choice. They want to make it extremely clear so that no one can possibly say otherwise.
Most western farmers and certainly most Reformers support keeping the Canadian Wheat Board as a marketing agency. That is not the issue here. We support that. We support giving farmers a choice. In a democratic country, it is almost unimaginable that they have not had that choice.
I want to deal with these three issues. I know I will not have time to cover them adequately but I will give it a try. I will relate them to this legislation. By the time I finish it will be abundantly clear that scrutiny of the bill is necessary before second reading.
First, the Canadian Wheat Board has a level of secrecy the same as CSIS, almost unimaginable. Yet it is not accountable. People have to ask themselves why that level of secrecy is in place.
The auditor general, for example, does not have access to wheat board documents and to information from inside the board. Therefore, we cannot rely on an auditor general's report to deal with the operations of the board and to determine whether things are being done as they should be done. That is the level of secrecy.
For example, the only way we found out that a commissioner who quits or is fired is entitled to a severance package of somewhere around $290,000 was through a leaked document. Yet as a grain farmer, as someone who pays for the board's operation, I was not entitled to know that. We do not know the salaries of commissioners. We do not know, certainly, the benefits package of commissioners.
Farmers believe generally that the benefits package is totally beyond anything that is reasonable. As the people who are paying for these benefits, paying these salaries and paying this severance package, we have a right to know exactly the dollar amounts that are involved.
Accountability is the first issue. Has this bill changed accountability?