Madam Speaker, I will speak very briefly to the proposed amendments. I must stand after those last comments made by the parliamentary secretary.
The amendments were put forward by witnesses and by organizations that appeared before the committee. They were amendments that were, in most cases, approved and suggested by those organizations in order to make the legislation better than what it is.
I will speak specifically to the amendment that was put forward by myself as well as the member from the Canadian Alliance Party, that being the definition of shipper. That speaks to the essence of the bill which was to have a true commercial system. Unfortunately, the Canadian Wheat Board once again got its wish and its way in order to manipulate the process to the point where this will not be a true commercial system.
As for the memorandum of understanding, we wanted to have that open and transparent, as the government has always indicated that it should be. The fact is that now the memorandum of understanding need not come before parliament and need not come before members of the committee. It need only be dealt with by the Canadian Wheat Board and the minister, as well as the monitor. It goes specifically to the minister as opposed to parliament. I believe that speaks specifically to not having it open and transparent and having a system in place that is not only the same as we had before but in fact worse than what we had. I will speak to that on third reading.
The amendments are solid, good amendments. Unfortunately, they are not going to be passed because the government does not want to see better legislation.