Madam Speaker, we have heard a fairly slanted view of history from the hon. member.
I would like to answer one question he raised at the end of his speech. He said where was the government the last six months. The government has been consulting, listening and meeting with producers on this issue since 1993. I happened to be on the last committee which held hearings in western Canada. That is where some of the changes came from.
The hon. member for Brandon—Souris began his remarks by talking about free enterprise. He believes in free enterprise and he believes in choice. Let me submit to him that if he believes in choice, why is he opposing the inclusion clause? That gives producers a choice other than the Winnipeg commodity exchange and the open market.
The fact is the Canadian Wheat Board is making the free enterprise system work to the advantage of Canadian producers. It is collective selling. In any market the lowest seller sets the price. The Canadian Wheat Board is ensuring that Canadian producers do not compete against each other in the international marketplace. As a result, the returns are pooled and the maximized returns are given to the producers. That is good marketing management. I am surprised that members opposite do not support good marketing management.
The member also talked about marketing techniques which the Canadian Wheat Board has not kept up. Nothing could be further from the truth. He lives in Alberta, but I do not know if he has ever been in the offices of the Canadian Wheat Board. It is marketing intelligence and marketing at its best.
Study after study has been done. The wheat board report talked about the additional $265 million per year in wheat revenue which the Canadian Wheat Board obtained for producers because of collective selling over what the open market would have brought in. That is good marketing. It is using techniques. It is using a war room in terms of marketing, finding out what its customers are doing and maximizing the returns to producers.
Would the member not agree that this bill, improved as a result of consultations and discussions, offers choice, both in terms of excluding and including crops? It offers the choice which he claims to support.
Does he also not agree that this bill puts producers in charge of their own destiny and in charge of their own industry?
Those are the kinds of improvements which came about as a result of committee hearings. If we look at the original Bill C-72 and compare it to Bill C-4 and its conclusions we will see that producers are now in charge when previously they were not. Would he not agree?