Mr. Speaker, I am confident and assured that all members of the House will be keenly attuned and attentive to what I have to say. I know they want to hear members of the House speak common sense. I am sure it will be refreshing for them to hear it for a change because they certainly have not been practising it.
I am very pleased to speak to Bill C-4, an act to amend the Canadian Wheat Board Act. Faced with increased competition in ever evolving markets and bottom line pressures, western Canadian grain farmers are ready for important change. They have said clearly they want the Canadian Wheat Board, but they want it to be more democratic, more responsive and more accountable to them.
The Government of Canada is delivering on that request. Bill C-4 represents the biggest changes in western Canadian grain marketing in more than 50 years. Allow me to explain what these changes are.
For the first time ever, western Canadian grain producers will be responsible for directing the operations of the Canadian Wheat Board, a $6 billion corporation doing business in more than 70 countries around the world, one of the top 10 Canadian exporters and our country's biggest single earner of foreign exchange.
Under Bill C-4 the system by which the Canadian Wheat Board is currently run by government appointed commissioners will end. It will be replaced—