Mr. Speaker, before I speak to this bill I would like to rise on a point of information, privilege or whatever it is. Maybe you can guide me along on what I should be doing.
As members know, I have had the wheat board send me some nice friendly letters. I have always appreciated them. I am in a situation where the issue is that we have a whole bunch of area farmers in my constituency losing a whole pile of money on issues of freight and elevation and stuff being cleaned off their cheques.
On the class action suit these farmers said that Parliament should deal with it. Parliament has not dealt with it but now we find out that in a court case on November 11, 12 and 13 in Manitoba, the wheat board, under oath, admitted it should not have deducted freight, elevation or cleaning charges on these farmers.
This amounts to about $358,000 that has been deducted. As members know, this bill transfers the liability from the government to the pooling system. What do I do to get this issue resolved properly?
The courts have now found out that these farmers have had these fees deducted illegally but still nobody will deal with it. How do I handle that?
Also, during that court case, this farmer is charged with forfeitures for transporting grain illegally without an export permit to the U.S.
On February 2, 1996 one of the farmers in Saskatchewan filed an action against the minister of revenue and customs on the same issue. The government failed to file a defence.
It says very clearly in this document it is required to file in the registry of the Federal Court of Canada in the city of Ottawa at the local office or court its defence against this. It was never filed. It admitted it had no case.
The government is still prosecuting farmers under this same rule. How can we pass a bill in the House when the liability is transferred from the government to the farmer pool itself?
I do not know how to debate this bill, whether I should first of all make a citizen's arrest of the Speaker or the government or whether I should lay criminal charges. How do we deal with a bill that is actually in contempt of court? The government has not filed a defence but is still prosecuting farmers.
I would like Mr. Speaker's learned wisdom on how to deal with this.