Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to make a few remarks about the private member's motion presented by the member for Yorkton--Melville. The New Democratic Party has always been a supporter of orderly marketing so it will come as no surprise to anyone in the House that we would be opposed to the motion before us today regarding the Canadian Wheat Board.
The board has been operating for more than 60 years, as the member for Yorkton--Melville pointed out. Currently it is the marketing agency for wheat and certain barley.
The mover of the motion mentioned that the board exists only in three provinces. He is factually incorrect. The wheat board operates in parts of the province of British Columbia together with the three prairie provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta.
The hon. member said the way the board is structured it would not be allowed in any other jurisdiction. He mentioned the legal community. While I would not associate myself with all the remarks of the parliamentary secretary who just spoke, there have been votes in the last few years on the board of directors of which the results are pretty clear. The individuals being elected to the Canadian Wheat Board are supporters of the board. They do not favour a provision for dual marketing or a voluntary board.
We heard a lot of these arguments in 1997 and 1998 when Bill C-4 was before the House. The bill led to the election of 10 of the 15 members of the board of directors. We heard about maximizing returns for producers.
I will take a moment to share with the House a conversation I had several years ago with a person in Chile who was an adviser to the minister of agriculture in that country. I asked him about his views on the Canadian Wheat Board. At the time I was a newly elected member of parliament and Bill C-4 was before the House and the standing committee.
He made two comments I thought were interesting. First, he said he disagreed fundamentally that people who defied the board should end up in jail. We heard the member for Yorkton--Melville talk about that today.
Second, he said that in his travels as an adviser to the minister in and around Santiago he would meet with millers in Chile and ask them why they continued to buy their product from the Canadian Wheat Board when they could buy it more cheaply from Archer Daniels Midland Co., Cargill Inc., Louis Dreyfus Canada or some of the other big grain companies of the world.
The comment he heard most frequently from the millers was that it was reliable to buy through the Canadian Wheat Board. They said they could sleep well at night knowing the product they were getting would be as advertised in terms of protein, nutrition and other things that are important to millers for the different kinds of flour, bread, pastries and other items they produce.
The millers were prepared to pay a premium to buy Canadian grain because it was reliable. They said Canada was known for being a good marketer and delivering what it said it would deliver.
There are plenty of these kinds of examples around. Virtually every analysis that has been done shows that while the wheat board has not always achieved the best returns it has been ahead of the market most of the time in terms of maximizing returns to producers. As an aside I would draw attention to the KPMG study that was done several years ago which we debated when Bill C-4 was before the House.
The second part of the motion says there should be an opting out mechanism that would allow producers to remove themselves and the grain they produce from the board's jurisdiction for a period of two years. We in the NDP think that would weaken the ability of Canadian farmers to compete in the international market.
The wheat board has introduced mechanisms for farmers to manage risks and undertake pricing options beyond the well established pool accounts. Fixed price and basis contracts off the Minneapolis grain exchange provide flexibility to farmers in managing business risks. For these and other reasons we continue to support the board.
We note in passing what Justice Muldoon said in Alberta a few years ago regarding the Alberta charter challenge against the board's authority as a single desk marketer of barley. He said a dual marketing system would do away with the wheat board and simply be a transition to an open market.
As I tried to indicate earlier, farmers have shown what they think of the board and single desk selling. In 1997, 63% of barley growers voted to have the board continue to market their crop.
In conclusion, it is not up to members of parliament to decide if some producers should be allowed to remove themselves from the board's jurisdiction. That is up to farmers to decide. They do that through regular elections to the board of directors of the Canadian Wheat Board.
We in my party fundamentally believe that the future of the wheat board is a debate for farmers in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and parts of British Columbia.