moved:
Motion No. 48
That Bill C-4, in Clause 36, be amended by replacing lines 22 to 27 on page 24 with the following:
“(5) Section 9 of this Act comes into force on the date on which the first directors elected assume office pursuant to section 3.08 of the Canadian Wheat Board Act, as enacted by section 3 of this Act.”
Mr. Speaker, I had hoped that the government might lead off debate, especially on this group of amendments. It is so typical of the government's arrogant attitude and how it has approached debate on this bill that it will not put members forward to debate these amendments. It is absolutely despicable. I hope and pray that the western Canadian farmers who are following this debate are taking note of the complete disdain with which the government has treated this debate over the last number of days. There are hardly any Liberal members in the House. The few in the House have not even addressed the issue. They are not interested in having an honest, open and proper debate on the 48 amendments which have been put forward, and they are very substantive amendments.
I notice the member for Malpeque, a Prince Edward Island potato farmer.
The big issue in this set of amendments is contained in Motion No. 43 which was put forward by my colleague from the Progressive Conservative Party to remove the inclusion clause. If there is one clause in Bill C-4 which has raised the ire across the board of western Canadian farmers it is the inclusion clause. The government knows it. There were many submissions and presentations made to the government in committee and across the land against the inclusion clause, and yet the government and the hon. member for Malpeque will not stand to defend it.
The reality is that people from coast to coast in this country who are involved in the farming communities know that the member for Malpeque should be down at the other end of the House. He should be in the NDP caucus. The only reason he is not is he knew he could never run for the NDP in Prince Edward Island and have a hope of getting to the House of Commons, so he decided to run as a Liberal.
As a past president of the National Farmers Union we know where his thinking is. We know that he wants more state control of agriculture in Canada. He wants expanded control of the Canadian Wheat Board. He wants more control, just as the hon. member from Regina just said. They want more crops brought in under the Canadian Wheat Board, more farmers in jail, I would assume.
Let us have a look at what witnesses, the few we had time to hear from, said about the inclusion clause when they appeared before the standing committee on agriculture last fall.
The prairie pools sent a written request to the minister by association which can demonstrate that it is the predominant organization which exists solely to represent the producers of that commodity in the designated area. They want it very clearly defined who is going to initiate including more commodities under the control of the Canadian Wheat Board.
Even the prairie pools have some serious concerns about this inclusion clause. United grain growers say no to the inclusion clause. Western Canadian wheat growers say no. Canadian canola growers, no; flax growers of Western Canada, no; the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, no; oat producers of Alberta, no. The list goes on and on. Virtually every group of witnesses, every farm organization that appeared before the committee said no to the inclusion clause and yet does it make any difference? Are they listening over there? They are still there.
I would like to remark on what has happened over the last little while with this bill, the reality. I spoke on Monday. I raised a question of privilege on this very issue, because what we have seen is this government and this minister, the Minister responsible for the Canadian Wheat Board, showing complete disdain, a lack of respect for this institution. That is the reality of what has happened. He is just proceeding as though this bill is law to the extent that because we have so many western Canadian farmers in the caucus of the official opposition in this House who wanted to speak to this bill, wanted to properly debate the amendments, actually brought in closure today to shut down debate. They do not want to hear from western Canadian farmers.
There is a group that has grown up from grassroots western Canadian farm organizations specifically to fight this bill. The thing that unifies it is the inclusion clause. That is the one thing that unified all these groups under a common umbrella. They said no, we certainly do not want that. Yes, we want to see change with the Canadian Wheat Board, but we certainly do not want to see it expanding its already mandatory powers over wheat and barley to other commodities such as canola or flax, things marketed on the free market right now.
Let us look at the organizations that make up this coalition against Bill C-4. Included are the Alberta Canola Producers Commission, the Alberta Winter Wheat Producers Commission, the B.C. Grain Producers Association, an organization that I was very proud to be the president of for a number of years when I was actively farming. I probably shovelled more grain that ended up in Canadian Wheat Board cars than most members on the opposite side have ever seen in their lives.
Also included are the Canadian Canola Growers Association, the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, the Canadian Oil Seed Processors Association, the Flax Growers of Western Canada, the Manitoba Canola Growers Association, the Oat Producers Association of Alberta, the Ontario Canola Growers Association. Even Ontario canola growers are in on it because they are concerned about this. Others are the Western Barley Growers Association, the Saskatchewan Canola Growers Association, the Western Canadian Wheat Growers Association and the Winnipeg commodity exchange. They all joined together to try to fight Bill C-4, largely because of this inclusion clause.
I would add that this meeting I referred to in my point of privilege last week, the meeting that the hon. minister for the Canadian Wheat Board held in Regina on January 21, some of those organizations I just read out were invited to attend that meeting. And what happened at that meeting?
The majority of those organizations invited urged the minister to drop the inclusion clause brought forward because of one member, the hon. member for Malpeque who joined the House and perhaps will join in the debate. We welcome him and we would like to hear from him in this debate later on. Those organizations walked out in complete disgust. They wanted to discuss the bill and the ramifications of this bill on western Canadian farmers. The reality was the minister was there to discuss how to hold the elections. We had not even voted on how many directors there would be.
There is an amendment that has been put forward by me on behalf of the Reform Party to have all 15 directors elected. We are not going to vote on that until next Monday evening. Yet the minister holds a meeting in Regina and invites farm groups to discuss how to go about holding these elections, as though this bill were already law. We wonder why the Parliament of Canada has become irrelevant in the minds of so many Canadian citizens. It is because of the arrogant attitude of ministers like that.
What happened at this meeting? The majority of those groups walked out in complete disgust. It is interesting that both the premier of Alberta and the premier of Manitoba wrote to the Prime Minister about this inclusion clause. I have copies of the letters. They wrote scathing criticism of this inclusion clause that the socialists obviously support judging by the heckling coming from that end. They join their other Liberal brothers in trying to support this state run commodity organization.
Unfortunately my time has expired. I would like to go on for considerable length discussing this, but that's life.