Mr. Speaker, it is not often that the minister would lead off a debate on a bill like this one, which is probably more important to the people in western Canada than the finance minister's budget speech because they have been waiting for this since 1996.
I want to do something which is rare and congratulate the Minister of Transport. The minister admitted that he does not always get his own way. We in western Canada, all of the farmers in western Canada, wish that he had gotten his own way because the minister tried to bring about what Chief Justice Estey along with Mr. Kroeger recommended. That was denied to him by his seatmate, the minister in charge of the wheat board, and a few Liberals from the city of Winnipeg. That is a fact and it will not be missed by the people of western Canada.
I congratulate the minister for his vision. A minister from the great city of Toronto could see the problems in western Canada, but the minister in charge of the wheat board and other hon. members refused to look at the future.
We are in the year 2000, but this bill in many ways will take us back to the 1950s. Hospitals do not use 1950s X-ray machines. We do not see farmers running around with Massey-Harris 17 combines. We do not see a DC Caterpillar building roads. With this bill the Canadian Wheat Board will be empowered with a role it was never designed to have in the first place. The wheat board will now have a dual role. It will be involved in a more intricate way with transportation.
I watched what happened in 1996 with the railways. For the record, the instructions given by the government to Chief Justice Estey were “To ensure that Canada has the most efficient, viable and competitive grain handling and transportation system”. He did just that. However, when the report came back indicating that there would be more openness and more competitiveness which would allow the grain industry in western Canada to let the wheat board play a role in direct negotiation with the railways, the Minister of Transport got shot down by his own party.
The minister in his speech referred to hundreds of meetings during a two year period. Mr. Estey and Mr. Kroeger never changed their reports. These learned gentlemen recommended in language which everybody understood that Canada needed a commercially driven system. These learned gentlemen were not interested in protecting the status quo. That had failed. They were not interested in protecting an institution. They brought back a report which would ensure that Canada had the most efficient, viable and competitive grain handling and transportation system. These gentlemen were not out to penalize the railways. They wanted the cheapest freight rate possible to deliver grain to market.
I can assure the House that this will not last. This issue will come back to us in a few years. We will have to go through this whole issue again simply because this does not meet the needs of this century.
Mr. Speaker, I forgot to inform you that I will be sharing my time with my colleague from Selkirk—Interlake, if that is permissible.