Madam Speaker, I hope the farmers in my riding are watching today. If they are, after hearing the NDP socialists from that end of the House and hearing the hon. member for P.E.I. they are probably wilder than any wild rose that grows in that riding.
One thing was mentioned earlier. They were disgusted on that side of the House and inferred that I would dare lead my farmers to believe this and that. I have news for that group of people across the way. In my riding the farmers lead me. I am here to give their voice. I have gone to extensive efforts to find out exactly what the people of Wild Rose would like for me to say today. I am going to make every effort to represent them in that regard.
Regardless of what they are saying across the House, Wild Rose grain growers are not in favour of Bill C-4. They do not want it. There are a lot of things about it that they do not like. If they are going to amend it there are some things they would want to see in it which obviously this group is not going to include.
One thing that concerns farmers in Wild Rose is that the vote to decide whether we have Bill C-4 will basically be that of the Liberals. We know they support the entire bill because they have been told to do so.
I do not imagine that have been many wheat board town hall meetings in the city of Toronto lately. I am quite certain they have not had very many in Montreal. Our Bloc friends would not have a lot of wheat board meetings in any of their ridings. Yet, all members of Parliament from those areas will not hear the voice of the west. They will hear the voice of the leaders in the front row who say to them “When you come to vote on Bill C-4 you will vote what I tell you to vote. That is the way it is in the Liberal Party. You will vote the way you are told”.
I am thankful I belong to a party that gives me full privilege to vote according to the way my constituents want me to. I know how the farmers in Wild Rose want me to vote on this issue. I will be representing them, even though no one else is willing to listen to western farmers. After all, that is who we are talking about: western farmers. That is who is being affected.
I was talking to some of my colleagues across the way in the street awhile ago. I mentioned that they should consider what is being said in the west and not listen to the rhetoric or their own caucus leaders. They should listen to what is being said in the west and vote for those people because the bill affects them.
One member made an interesting comment. She said “No, this wheat board. You are all in”. She said that it was like a dental plan, that if we were to have a dental plan for Canadians they would all be included. I asked if that would include Ontario, Quebec and the Atlantic provinces. She said “Absolutely”.
Then I said that all the farmers must be rushing from Ontario and from Quebec to get to Winnipeg to sign up for the wheat board because it is so great. I would like to see the repercussions if the government were to announce that all grain growers throughout the country, including Ontario and Quebec, were to immediately come under the Canadian Wheat Board. I would love to see the response.
Let us consider the opting out clause. The member for Yorkton—Melville and the member for Portage—Lisgar would love to be with us, but today they are in a courtroom with a farmer who is also fighting for the right to sell his own product.
All the things we see around us, the paper on our desks, the chairs, the books and whatever is made, are the product of hard work. At the end of the day producers can market their goods the best way they choose. However, a grain farmer in western Canada cannot do that. The government tells them how to market their barley and wheat because of these kinds of bills. Farmers simply want the option to use the wheat board or to use some other mechanism.
In 1993 the Conservative Party had the wisdom to open the continental barley market. During those years farmers flourished. Barley farmers phoned me in 1993 to tell me how well they did. When we do some checking we also find that Canadian Wheat Board marketers got off their backsides and worked hard because they now had some competition and did better than they had ever done. That is a good sign to me that competition is healthy and that it ought to be considered.
Another farmer is being arrested because he tried to sell his grain. I was at Andy McMechan's trial and I was at Bill Cairns' trial. I watched them being chained and shackled and taken off to jail. At the same time I saw a violent offender being given community service. The policies and legislation of my colleagues across the way makes that possible. Two rapists are walking free because of the wonderful way socialists and Liberals think that a rapist can walk free and get community service. However, a farmer trying to demand the right to look after his own produce goes to jail.
Not only that but I saw the farmers get consecutive sentencing. I have been trying to get consecutive sentencing in the House for a long time. Clifford Olson murdered 11 people and he got one life sentence. Bill Cairns tried to sell his grain on two occasions. He got 60 days and 90 days consecutively. “We will show those rotten crooks, those mean people, those dangerous offenders who dare try to sell their own produce”.
They worked hard. They sowed their grain. They planted it. They hoped to get the right moisture. They worked hard to get it into the bin, and suddenly it is not theirs any more. It belongs to somebody else. They have no way of marketing their produce without going through the government's Canadian Wheat Board. They want the option.
I will read from an article of which I am sure most people in the House are aware. It concerns the Privacy Act and is entitled “Canadian taxpayers hold $7 billion liability through Canadian Wheat Board—high profile panel wants to end government secrecy”:
Canadian taxpayers hold a $7 billion liability through the Canadian Wheat Board (CWB) and have paid millions of dollars on behalf of foreign grain purchasers in order to hold this liability to its current level.
Although the CWB does produce an annual report which provides a limited amount of information, its exemption from the federal Access to Information Act means taxpayers and farmers are unable to independently evaluate its operations and performance.
How much the CWB fitness instructor gets paid, details of financial returns realized from the sale of wheat and barley in the 1960s and 70s, and a breakdown of demurrage costs paid by farmers over the years is just some of the information a high profile agricultural committee wants the federal government to disclose.
A detailed synopsis of the $7 billion taxpayer liability and the transactions that led to this debt are also being requested. The outstanding amount owed is equal to $1,000 for every family of four in Canada.
Maybe we should have some wheat board meetings in the cities of Toronto and Montreal, but they are not very interested. They might be interested in knowing that as taxpayers they are also being burdened with the load.
This group of people want to put an end to the secrecy at the Canadian Wheat Board but the government will not allow it. In fact when these farmers came to Ottawa last week, the agriculture minister, his secretary and no one else would meet with them. They do not want it to become open.
The question that the farmers in Wild Rose are asking is, what is it they do not want us to know?
One of those members had the gall to say to me one day “We must keep a lot of things secret because most farmers do not really know the proper method they should use to market their grain”. He said that if some information were disclosed to the farmers they would use it wrongly and it would not be helpful.
The Canadian Wheat Board is for the benefit of the government, not for the benefit of Canada's producers.