Mr. Speaker, I enjoyed my colleague's comments, as I always do. He is very knowledgeable about agriculture and the agriculture legislation that comes before this place.
Of the 50 Reform MPs that were elected this term, seven are still actively farming or were active farmers prior to being elected to this place. A number of Reform MPs speak with a certain amount of knowledge about agricultural issues and the hon. member for Lisgar-Marquette is one of them.
In the few minutes I have I would like to relay something which happened to me as the member of Parliament for Prince George-Peace River recently in connection with the Canadian Wheat Board. I will relate the story to my colleague and ask him to comment because I know he has done a lot of research and has taken some strong positions with respect to reform of the Canadian Wheat Board.
There was a bill before the House, which for some mysterious reason has not come back since the Easter break, called Bill C-72. I wanted to ascertain if there was a consensus of the farmers in my riding so that I could speak with authority in the House of Commons and vote accordingly.
I approached the Canadian Wheat Board. I had about 10 questions which I wanted to ask specifically about the bill. I wanted to ask those questions of Canadian Wheat Board permit book holders. Obviously, as anyone who has done polling or surveying will know, you do not want to dilute the results on an issue such as this by surveying ranchers or dairymen or other people who would not be in the business of exporting grain. It was key to having the most accurate results possible for my survey to target Canadian Wheat Board permit book holders.
I called the office of the Canadian Wheat Board in Winnipeg and explained to them that I wanted the mailing list for all Canadian Wheat Board permit book holders in the B.C. Peace region, for both north and south Peace. They explained to me that they could not give out the mailing list under any circumstances. It had to be kept secret.
I explained who I was. I faxed them a copy of my questionnaire. I was not trying to hide anything. I was not trying to ask loaded questions or anything like that. They still would not help me, as the elected member of the people of that region.
I then said: "Out of my member's operating budget I will send you the questionnaire, pre-sealed, in envelopes. All you have to do is print out the labels, put the labels on the envelopes and send them out. I will pay someone at the Canadian Wheat Board office in Winnipeg for however many hours it takes to print out the labels, affix them to the envelopes and mail them out". They still refused to provide that service, even if I was going to cover their costs. Therefore I could not accurately poll the permit book holders in my riding on the issue.
I find it very deeply troubling that an organization such as the Canadian Wheat Board, which is supposedly there for the betterment of farmers, would not allow a member of Parliament, regardless of political stripe, the opportunity to accurately survey constituents on such an important issue.
That is the story of one of my experiences with the Canadian Wheat Board. It is very secretive. It is well known that the
Canadian Wheat Board, like CSIS, does not have to comply with access to information requests. Farmers and Canadians are becoming increasingly troubled by that.
I want to ask my colleague if he has had the similar experience of running up against a brick wall with the Canadian Wheat Board and not being able to access a mailing list so that he could properly survey constituents.