Mr. Speaker, I wish I could say I am delighted to stand here today and speak on Bill C-4, the Canadian Wheat Board Act, but as a matter of fact I am not. I am not delighted at all. I am very upset about this legislation. I am upset about the fact that we have in this House members, the majority by far who are over there on that majority side government, who are not under the wheat board, who are making arbitrary decisions that affect western farmers. They sit over there and laugh while we are trying to bring these very serious and important issues to their mind.
What is also very annoying is that those gutless members over there are all going to vote the way they are told. They are not going to stand up and say yes to what the members from the west have said, because it affects the farmers in the west. The wheat board does not affect farmers in Ontario or in the east. It is strictly farmers in the west. They have the gall to stand there and say we will do the way our minister says and we will not even listen to this debate.
The fact is there is a lot of very serious opposition to this bill. They can stand up and say there was this vote and two-thirds of the farmers voted to stay in the wheat board. Sure, what was the question. It was a rigged question just like that question in Quebec was. It said do you want all in or all out?
That is the same as on a hot day. Do you stand on the edge of the pool or do you go four feet under? That is the choice that we were given, instead of giving the farmers the choice they really wanted and that was simply freedom.
There is no reason in the world why the wheat board cannot continue to function and still allow individual farmers, when they see a market that they can fill, to have the freedom to market their own grain outside the wheat board if they so choose.
This is a bunch of hooey when they say that the wheat board cannot function unless it has a monopoly. Monopolies basically stifle any good performance. Farmers in the west have been dumped on. They have been shafted. Dare I say it, they have been raped by central Canada over and over again and they are plumb tired of it.
I suppose this is a question of unity. Democracy only works as long as we have the consent of the governed. There are more and more farmers out west who are getting so cotton pickin' upset about this intrusion on their freedom by this central government that they are losing their consent to be governed. They are getting to a point where they want to revolt. Why will this government not listen to some very sensible amendments and say those amendments make sense and we will follow them?
I grew up on a farm in Saskatchewan. When I was a youngster I remember my dad saying “I cannot understand how come, when I buy a combine or a tractor that is manufactured in Ontario, I have to pay the freight from Ontario to Saskatchewan. Yet if I sell them my grain, I have to pay the freight from my farm all the way to Ontario”. Why is that? It is because the big powerbrokers, the big majority here, not listening to the sensible needs of western farmers, just say nuts to you, we will do whatever we want. It is just like these guys are doing right now. They are sitting over there, disrespectful. Look at that potato farmer from Prince Edward Island. He has nothing to do with the wheat board and he is sitting there grinning because he is in a position where he—