Mr. Speaker, the issue we are debating in Group No. 4 is election versus appointment of officers of the Canadian Wheat Board. I wish members opposite would take the debate a little more seriously, stand in their places and explain to me, to my constituents and to other western farmers why they are being denied exactly what farmers in Ontario currently have. We are asking for the same thing but we are being told it is not good for us. It is good for them but they are not breaking down the door to give the Canadian Wheat Board jurisdiction in Ontario.
We have a valid concern and a valid point to make on behalf of producers. While maybe some of the debate is repetitive or may wander from the election of wheat board officers, the emotions surrounding the issue increase in my riding every day.
I was home on the weekend. I just arrived back in Ottawa this afternoon. On Saturday afternoon a farmer in my riding contacted me. He is a second generation grain producer in the mid-northern part of my riding that has farmed all his life. The Farm Credit Corporation, an agency of the federal government, has given him 60 days to vacate his farm. He has not been able to put a crop in the ground for two years. It has been so wet he has not been able to get into his fields. It draws my emotions out when I hear people joking, laughing and making sport of the issue and issues surrounding farming.
On the airplane on my way back to Ottawa I was reading a story in the paper about a Manitoba farmer, a constituent of a colleague of mine, who was jailed for 60 days, given a $2,500 fine and had his $50,000 grain truck seized. Almost exactly the same day this took place, two men who gang raped a woman in B.C. were given community service. The farmer for selling $500 worth of grain was put in leg shackles, strip searched and humiliated day after day. We cannot help but get emotional and start throwing these things back and forth.
As I said, I challenge members on the other side to take the matter seriously. Let us stand and talk about why Canadian farmers cannot have an elected board in control of the wheat board and cannot have the wheat board working for farmers, elected by farmers and responsible to farmers.
There must be some transparency in the board. It certainly is not elected. The minister insists for whatever reason—and I do not know what it would be—on maintaining control over the board. Is it any wonder farmers in western Canada are suspicious and do not trust the board?
Farmers in my riding want to support the Canadian Wheat Board. They believe in the Canadian Wheat Board and what it can do for farmers. However, because of its historic injustices, they want control of the board. They want to elect the people who control the board. They do not want the minister and the government to control the board, simply because the courts said that the board was not responsible to farmers. A situation where a farmer has to sell his grain to the Canadian Wheat Board at the same time as he could get double the price for his grain by trucking it just a few miles across the border seems to be an injustice to farmers.
We have farmers in tears because they are losing the family farm after two generations. They are being deprived of up to $3 a bushel for their grain because the Canadian Wheat Board will not let them market it. It bothers me when I see the whole issue being made into a joke and being bantered back and forth. It is an extremely serious issue in my part of the country. I do not think the demands of my constituents, the Reform Party and my colleagues are anything more than reasonable and normal under the circumstances.
I urge members opposite to take them seriously, debate the matter seriously and give us some real reason they will not accept the number of amendments we are putting forward to make the changes. They will give farmers confidence and faith in the Canadian Wheat Board and make them willing to use it as a marketing tool for their grain.
If we keep going in the direction we are going and if the government insists on maintaining the position it is maintaining, the Canadian Wheat Board will be destroyed.
Already in my part of the world farmers are turning to other alternatives. They are looking at non-wheat board crops. They are looking at local markets in livestock production. They are turning away from the Canadian Wheat Board because the government refuses to budge. It refuses to change its position on the Canadian Wheat Board in any way.
The government is being unreasonable. It makes me quite sad to see that response. With that I will close my remarks.