Mr. Speaker, I am here today to speak at report stage of Bill C-72, the legislation that the Liberals have brought in to change the Canadian Wheat Board.
Quite frankly, I am surprised that this legislation ever made it to the House. It should not have. It does not do what farmers in western Canada want done with the board. It does not even do what the Liberal government said it wanted to do to the wheat board.
Throughout committee and during clause by clause, it became very clear that this is extremely bad legislation. It is not legislation that should ever have found its way to the House. I am disappointed that it did. It does not do, by the way, what the panel that studied the wheat board and travelled across western Canada said it should do. It does not even come close. That panel recommended that the wheat board become accountable to farmers.
This legislation, if looked at on the surface, does that to some extent in a very minimal way. Clearly the government and the government appointees will control what happens to the board.
The amendments that we, the Reform Party, presented would have done something had they not been rejected by the government. They would have gone at least a little way toward fixing some of these problems. However quite honestly, this is a piece of legislation that cannot be fixed.
As we know, this legislation will never come to a vote in the House, nor should it. It will be thrown out. Whether we have a government led by Preston Manning coming back, a government led by Mr. Chrétien or a government led by somebody else, we will have to start again. I realize that I have used the names of members and I will refrain from doing that.
This legislation will not do what farmers want. A study done by the Saskatchewan government showed that 56 per cent of farmers want the freedom to either market through the board or directly, either through a grain company or on their own to another country, the United States or wherever. It does not do what that study indicated.
It does not honour the results of the plebiscite held in Alberta. That plebiscite showed that 66 per cent of farmers wanted dual marketing, as its commonly called, or wanted a choice to either market through the wheat board, or through a grain company or somewhere else as they choose.
That is what the panel that was set up by the government recommended. It recommended that barley be sold freely and farmers have a choice either to sell through the board or on the open market as they choose, whether inside the country or outside. The government did not honour the recommendations of its own panel.
In a survey in my constituency of Vegreville done by TeleResearch Inc. roughly 85 per cent of farmers polled by this professional pollster-and I tabled the report with the committee so the government knows what it showed-are in favour of having a choice, dual marketing, marketing either through the board or on their own for barley. It was slightly lower for wheat but not very much. In the Beaver River constituency even a higher percentage wanted to have that choice and did not want the monopoly.
This bill will not do what farmers in either Vegreville consistency, which I represent, or in the constituency that the hon. member for Beaver River, Deb Grey, represents.