Mr. Speaker, my first words this morning have to be ones of condemnation as well toward the government for introducing closure on Bill C-4. I remind the House, especially those who do not sit on the Standing Committee for Agriculture and Agri-food, that the bill was rushed through the House last fall. At that time the excuse was that the government wanted to have the bill through before Christmas.
I recall that even before the Canadian Wheat Board made its presentation on Bill C-4 opposition and government members on the committee were to have their amendments in. This is yet another example of this rush to judgment. A couple of more days to have concluded all this would not have been beyond the pale.
We are dealing this morning with Group No. 5 in which there are 14 or 15 amendments. In a broad brush way they include the auditor general, which my colleague for Frontenac—Mégantic spoke about it at some length; maximizing returns to farmers-producers and I will come back to that; the contingency fund; how any profits from the new wheat board will be consolidated; and the questions of lower then normal price, best returns, overtime and the accountability of directors.
I want to zero in during my remarks this morning on the contingency funds. For us this proposal is perhaps the worst feature of Bill C-4.
Bill C-4 does not reflect the wishes of western Canadian farmers. Despite objections from numerous farmers and farm groups section 39(1) remains in the bill. That section would allow for cash buying and thus undermine price pooling.
Bill C-4 also terminates the government's guarantee of adjusted initial prices. These two changes together would necessitate the creation of the contingency fund which has been estimated could cost farmers as much as $5.45 a tonne every year for five years on every tonne sold through the Canadian Wheat Board. That is a total of $27 per tonne marketed.
This is based on Mr. Hehn's estimate of a contingency fund that would be in the neighbourhood of $575 million or $580 million. Again we have no indication from the government about how big or how small that contingency fund will be. One assumes that the $580 million comes loosely on a 10% contingency fund for the annual marketing of the Canadian Wheat Board, which is in the neighbourhood of $6 billion.
The contingency fund could cost wheat and barely growers almost as much money as they received under the Crow payout scheme of two or three years ago.
Canadian Wheat Board supporters are not only being asked to accept legislation that fundamentally damages the board, but through the contingency they could be asked to pay thousands of dollars each if Bill C-4 changes are implemented. The bill ignores and repudiates the clearly articulated will of the vast majority of western Canadian farmers and is therefore totally unacceptable in its present form.
The minister responsible for the wheat board has been able to achieve the almost impossible. He has all the opposition parties united against the bill, admittedly for very different reasons but nonetheless in total opposition to what we have in front of us. It seemed to be unthinkable at the time but the impossible has been achieve.
Let me make it crystal clear that our caucus and our party oppose the bill because we do not believe that what is here unamended will improve the Canadian Wheat Board. Rather it will significantly weaken the Canadian Wheat Board.
The fundamental question that needs to be answered is whether the bill will or will not be an improvement over what we have now, particularly the three pillars of the current wheat board. The conclusion, as I have said, is that what is before us is a significant diminution of the wheat board which has been a critical factor in western Canada for the past 63 years.
There are three pillars of the wheat board. We believe two of them are at risk in the bill as we see it, price pooling and government guarantees. If the Reform amendments were adopted the third pillar would disappear as well, single desk selling.
As we all know, Reform wants to do away with the wheat board. They want a voluntary board or to do marketing which would effectively kill the wheat board. The notion of a voluntary board is a total fraudulent idea. It is a scam, as was noted by the Alberta Judge Muldoon who said that a duel market was simply a quick transition to an open market. This is something Reform critics and commentators never acknowledge.
I want to say how refreshing it was to hear the agriculture critic for the Conservative Party when he rose on Monday to speak to the bill and specifically to some of the resolutions, instead of the pathetic bleating and ranting of many but not all in the Reform Party.
One Reform Party speaker told us how many speakers from his party had risen to speak in this debate. Let me say as an interested observer that there was a heck of a lot more chaff than wheat in most of the content we heard on Monday afternoon. Particularly abysmal was the performance of the member for Saskatoon—Humboldt. I would encourage any fair minded person to go back and read his contribution to Monday's debate.
Western Canadian wheat growers have a policy that I do not agree with. They have a lengthy paper on duel marketing. They are the ideological soul mates of many Reformers. They must be somewhat embarrassed when they hear what is said many times on the floor of the House.
On the contingency fund, we would propose specifically under Motion No. 25 to delete all references to the contingency fund. Let me underline that we believe the fund is, as I have said before, the single worst feature of the bill. The idea of establishing such a fund follows from provisions in the bill for cash buying. That is the logic behind it. The contingency fund is unnecessary if Ottawa would continue to provide financial guarantees to the board as it has done for the past six decades, guarantees, I might add, that are seldom used and as a result cost taxpayers next to nothing.
Furthermore, the government is either unwilling or unable to indicate how large of fund is required. I have alluded to that. The assumptions are somewhere between $350 million and as much as $575 million to establish the fund.
I note in passing that the parliamentary secretary to the minister of agriculture rose in his place while we were debating the bill last November and said that nobody could pinpoint exactly how large the contingency fund would be. It is another dilemma in our position on the bill.
We believe the government could make an important concession by guaranteeing federal finances that have seldom been required over the past six decades to support the wheat board. It would mean that the kind of money we are talking about would not be required to be produced by farmers but instead would have some genesis and some real assistance from the Canadian government.
Motion No. 30 simply reinforces the federal guarantee to the Canadian Wheat Board. It is in Group No. 5 as well.
Before I close I want to refer to one of the amendments before us. It was somewhat startling to hear what the member for Yorkton—Melville said on this grouping. Subsection 1 shall not be interpreted to prevent the corporation from making a contract to sell a type of grain at a price that is lower than normal in order to secure other sales of the same type of grain that will result in the best return to producers of that type over a period of time.
That amendment sticks out because it is totally hypocritical. That party has been chastising the wheat board over many years because it fails to get the best return. Now it is suggesting that we should do it as an order of business.
I close by saying that this party opposes any notion of a contingency fund and we want to see the continuation of government guarantees in Bill C-4.