There goes the Reform Party again. It really kills them to listen, does it not? It really kills them.
I want to pay tribute to all the prairie farmers who have participated in this debate with regard to changing the wheat board.
Prairie farmers are very democratically inclined. They take their business very seriously. They take the wheat board very seriously. They take the government seriously and they take politics seriously. They have made an enormous contribution to the debate which has been going on for a long, long time. I want to pay tribute to all the farmers who have worked so hard in trying to improve this bill as much as possible and who have given us the benefit of their views.
I know this is going to kill the Reform Party, but I would like to pay tribute to the minister responsible for the wheat board. If ever there was a minister who worked harder and who listened more to the stakeholders I would like to know who that minister is. This minister has bent over backward to find common ground, balance, equilibrium and compromise so that everyone's aspirations and desires would be reflected in the bill. The minister has done a magnificent job.
Let us be absolutely frank. If you are on the fringe of this debate, if you are a fanatic, you are not going to appreciate the hard work of this minister.
I know that most prairie farmers are fair minded. They are moderate people. They belong to the mainstream. What they want is a workable bill. They want a bill which will work. They do not expect that absolutely everything they desire will be in it. That is simply not possible in this kind of world.
We would have to exclude the Reform Party because its members live in some kind of ideological dream.
I wanted to put those remarks on the record for the sake of facts.