Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak to Group No. 4 amendments to Bill C-4 dealing with the election of directors, the number of directors and the duty of the directors.
Why do farmers not trust the partially elected board? I think that is the number one question in western Canada. I would say it is mainly due to one simple reason, that the minister and this government have not listened to western Canadian farmers. They have prepared a bill they feel should be put on the backs of western farmers so they can control the destiny of western Canadians farmers for another half century probably, and that is something farmers violently object to.
The minister does not listen. Why? That is one question I have not been able to answer. We know this minister spent at least a year and a half establishing the western grain marketing panel which was supposed to do a job of listening and then give the minister recommendations on how to deal with this bill.
As I have watched this thing unfold in the House and in the public, none of those recommendations was really ever accepted or implemented into Bill C-4, and that has what has caused farmers to react bitterly to this bill.
We wonder why the minister is not listening. It does not make sense. I was listening to his presentation the other day to counteract the point of privilege the member for Prince George—Peace River put forward.
The straightforward meeting with farm leaders which I held on January 21, which is Reform's sole source of complaint in the alleged question of privilege, was part of that open, inclusive and transparent effort to gain the benefit of producer input.
According to reports on that meeting, the minister told these producer groups what was in the bill and what they would have to accept. That is more or less why those people from the producer groups walked out on that meeting. I do not think too many people stayed at that meeting to listen to the minister or to have their concerns brought forward.
To me that is not listening, it is dictating. It would be wise for this government to accept the premise that we are here to represent our constituents and not to represent Ottawa to the grassroots people in our home constituencies.
The minister went on to say: “In his intervention last Tuesday, the member for Yorkton—Melville admitted that he had done just that the very next day and after my meeting. The member for Portage—Lisgar has had meetings about the details of Bill C-4 and many other Reformers have done the same. The extraparliamentary meetings to discuss Bill C-4 while that bill is pending before the House are not a breach of privilege, they are not in contempt and neither am I”.
The Speaker has just ruled that is the case, but I want to talk about the meetings I attended in Saskatchewan and Alberta. There were 600 people at the meeting in Weyburn. The minister was invited to participate and to bring forward his concerns or his ideas but he did not show up.
When the question was asked of how many in the audience wanted a single desk selling system, not one hand went up. Eighty to ninety per cent of the farmers said that they wanted a dual marketing system or a voluntary wheat board. Nothing in this bill promotes a voluntary wheat board. That is why this minister has a tremendous number of problems with listening to farmers and getting this bill through the House.
After the meeting in Yorkton—Melville a producer wrote to the minister to explain that it was one of the best and most informative farm meetings he had ever seen held in that area. He said that he supported that type of meeting.
Because the minister did not attend and did not want to listen, they held a vote to see how many people at that meeting thought the minister should resign for not listening to the producers. Over 80% lifted their hands to say that the minister should resign for not representing the interests of western farmers. They used to call this area the red square. This gives us an idea of how much attention he is paying to this issue.
I do not know why the minister does not want to listen, why he would rather prosecute farmers.
In 1994 a group of farmers made a presentation to the minister on the frozen wheat issue. They wanted him to look into why Sask Pool or the wheat board dumped grain into Montana at half price. He did not respond after the meeting. He never did anything about it. This is what the minister did.
The minister threw a huge forfeiture against a farmer who during a protest here two years ago had loaded 50 pounds of wheat in a pick-up truck, took it across the border and donated it to a 4-H club in Montana. The farmer did not know what was going on and he used the pick-up truck to transport his kids to hockey games in Montana. He also has some interest in some land there. They kept jacking up the forfeitures. He has $132,000 worth of forfeitures against this half ton pick-up truck.
This is how the minister is treating these western farmers. It is causing a lot of animosity toward the minister and this government. It is a sign that democracy in Ottawa just is not working. When I see farmers fined for taking 50 pounds of barley across the line in protest, then I see people smuggling marijuana and cocaine on the streets without fines or imprisonment, something is wrong.
All that these farmers have been doing is trying to get a better price to bring more bucks into the economy and to be able to have a better standard of living on the farm than before, and they are getting fines for it. That is what this bill is about. It is a bill which is supposed to change the wheat board to give farmers more democracy and more choices. It is exactly the opposite.
One of the former wheat board commissioners was interviewed and he said that it is becoming more secretive. On the old wheat board the commissioners at least had the authority to refuse certain recommendations made by the minister or parliament. Today he will have the power to fire and hire on the will of his desires. That is democratic? That is the way this whole government is going.
It is very important that the government not just listen to western farmers. If this is the type of a marketing system that we can be controlled by, where the government states “You have to turn your grain over, you have to take the price that we dictate to you”, why will it not do it to our RRSPs? It is the same thing.
Any marketing system is at risk if this type of a bill is allowed to pass this House. It is of utmost importance that this bill gets defeated, but with the Liberal backbenchers being controlled by the front benches or the cabinet, I do not see much hope of that happening. It means one thing, that in the next federal election western farmers have to make sure that they do not have a Liberal government or else they will be indebted to this type of bill for the next half century.
That is why there is such a big protest to this bill in western Canada. It is not just a bill about marketing grain, but it is a bill about freedom and property rights. It surprises me when I look at some of the western provinces. They are prepared to go to court on gun legislation to protect the right whether you should register your gun or not, but they have not had the guts to stand up and say to the federal government “This is property, this is grain that the farmers grew. This is something they have the right to enjoy. This is something they have the right to sell for the best price that they can get”.
Democracy works in this fashion. Democracy works from the bottom up. Democracy works when the elected parliamentarians listen to the people. Dictatorship is the reverse. Dictatorship works when government dictates to the constituents what they have to do and how they will do it.
Mr. Speaker, I hope you have listened and I hope you have taken it to heart. I hope you can vote against your government and do what is right.