My friend says that I had better stick to the amendment. I certainly will, unlike him.
My friend raised one issue that is addressed in the amendment. He said, again in his conspiracy theory, that the Reform Party is somehow engaged in an attack on small farmers. He said that one of our amendments would somehow disenfranchise small farmers.
All it does is stand up for multigenerational farms. There are situations where farmers and perhaps a son or a couple of sons are on the farm. We want to ensure they all have a vote. Why does the NDP insist on attacking family farms? What do NDPers have against family farms?
All we are doing is ensuring that a hobby farmer, a lawyer in the big city or maybe even an imperialist dog who may have a little land in the country is unable to wipe out with one vote the vote of a multigenerational family farm. That is what we are standing up for. That is speaking to the amendments.
We wish to address a number of other items. We want to talk about the amendment of the member for Prince George—Peace River in northern B.C. The member proposes that we have a fully elected membership on the Canadian Wheat Board. That makes tremendous sense to me. I am surprised my NDP friends who are allegedly great populists did not stand in support of the idea of democracy in the Canadian Wheat Board. Do they not believe in allowing farmers to control their very own institutions? It makes tremendous sense to me. Not only does the NDP not want that but the government does not want that.
Because of tremendous pressure the government is at the point where it will consider allowing some directors to be elected, but it will certainly not engender the possibility of the majority of board members voting to open the board in any way. The government will not only ensure that enough of those members are appointed in the old standard way. It will also insist that the president be appointed by the agriculture minister.
I come from a part of the country where we embrace free enterprise principles. People there believe in the free market. In every other area they say we should have the choice to market our product the way we choose. We want the choice. Many people say they want to retain the Canadian Wheat Board as a voluntary organization.
A few minutes ago somebody spoke of the wheat board as a co-operative. It is not a co-operative as it stands now. It is a coercive. You have to belong to it. If you do not and you try to market your grain without going through the board, you will end up in shackles and leg irons like many Canadian farmers already have. To me that is absolutely ridiculous. If we are great believers in co-operatives, let us make the Canadian Wheat Board truly a co-operative. Let us allow people to be a part of it if they so choose.
We have a violation of the traditional natural rights to life, liberty and property. When it comes to liberty and property in this case, those fundamental natural rights are being abridged by the government and the Canadian Wheat Board. People in the west are upset about it.
We have seen numerous court cases. We have seen all kinds of protests. We have seen people breaking the law, committing acts of civil disobedience because they have had it with a government that is not permitting them to feed their families.
We have people who are looking across the border or considering the price they could get for their grain if they were allowed to market it themselves so they can feed their families. The government is saying “No, you cannot do that” and is sending those people to jail.
I cannot believe it. I am someone who comes from the west. I do not have an interest in a farm but I have sat and watched from the outside for a number of years. When I go around my riding, which is in southern Alberta, overwhelming people want the choice to belong to the board or not. Almost to a person, no matter what side of the issue they are on, they are very concerned about Bill C-4. They see it as a step backward.
I will speak to some other issues so that my friends in the NDP do not get up and accuse me of not being relevant. One issue my friend from Prince George—Peace River raised is really important. It is a motion to require the president to take steps to make the Canadian Wheat Board a signatory to the international code of ethics for Canadian business.
By way of background, the government has initiated a code of ethics. It has insisted that Canadian businesses that want to deal abroad follow the code of ethics.
Does it insist that government agencies be signatories to the code of ethics? No. Does it suggest that the Canadian Wheat Board that markets billions of dollars worth of grain around the world every year should be a signatory to the code of ethics? No.
We have the same old double standard. We have the government on one side saying “do as I say and not as I do”. Farmers and everybody else are expected to live up to a different standard. If experience tells us anything, we know that Canadian business people have higher ethical standards than the government. We have seen that over and over again.
The government displays unusual effrontery this time. It is the one that raises the issue. It is actually encouraging Canadian business to do it but will not live up to it. I find that unbelievable. I urge members to support Motion No. 16 in Group No. 4.
I summarize by saying that Bill C-4 is a rear guard action. Canadian farmers have made it very clear they will not tolerate the current Canadian Wheat Board. They will not tolerate any half measures. They want to see sweeping change. They want to see a voluntary Canadian Wheat Board. They want to have their natural rights restored, the rights to liberty and the rights to property. Those natural rights precede laws that come from government. We want to see them re-established.
I urge my friends in the House to consider very carefully the arguments of the Reform Party and certainly those of Canadian farmers who are willing in many cases to go to jail for them. I encourage my friends to vote with the Reform Party in support of the Reform amendments in Group No. 4.