Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for that question. I cannot figure it. I do not know why. Politically what is being done is dumb. The Liberal caucus will not gain any votes by doing what it is doing.
Some day it would be very wise, as I have said before, to have free votes on some of these issues. They would understand better. The Liberal MPs from Ontario do not object to Ontario farmers having a totally elected board and having the option of selling some or all of their grain to the export market in the United States. They want it. Western farmers want it. Why do they not give it to them?
If they can declare the Canadian Wheat Board voluntary its business would pick up. It would handle more grain. Over the 35 years I have farmed people always supported the wheat board regardless of whether or not they made money. They felt it was an agency that could be trusted. All of a sudden they lost trust in the wheat board.
When the farmers came to me I started looking into the irregularities. I never expected in all my life that I would have to deal with that issue as my first issue as an MP. I never dreamt of it. The more we looked into it and the more documentation we looked at, we found something was wrong. When one farmer gets $1 to a $1.10 more than another farmer for the same quality wheat something is wrong in the pooling system.
It did not happen to strangers. It happened in my family. It happened to two of my brothers. They farmed 10 miles apart. One actually had better quality wheat. He got a $1.10 less a bushel than the other brother who had poor quality fusarium wheat. It was because there was competition between elevators in one place and in the other place there was not.
To all members on that side and to the minister I say to me that is not honesty and not what the pooling system was set up for. That is why I think these people cannot understand. We have 101 seats in Ontario. They satisfy their farmers but they are not willing to give the same opportunities to farmers in western Canada. It will backfire.