Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to stand to oppose the motion by the member for Brandon—Souris, because the net impact of the bill would be to undermine the ability of the Canadian Wheat Board to do its job.
The bottom line is the fact that the bill could even hurt producers' returns by, as the member who just spoke said, providing the competition with all the commercial information, the marketing information, et cetera, that the Canadian Wheat Board has available through its diligence and through the good work of its market information section.
I should not be surprised by the tactics of the member for Brandon—Souris, who is now using this new tactic under the guise of the access to information bill he is pursuing here to again attack the integrity of the Canadian Wheat Board. It seems to be commonplace for this member and members of the Canadian Alliance Party opposite to do that. They do it through the process of maybe stretching the facts a little and I would not want to go much further than that. They are building on myths about the Canadian Wheat Board.
I would use this as an example. In his closing remarks, the member for Brandon—Souris said, and I quote, “When public funding is a major cornerstone” of the organization then the Access to Information Act should apply.
The fact of the matter is the Canadian Wheat Board is not publicly funded. The Canadian Wheat Board operates under the legislation of the House. The Canadian Wheat Board is financed by farmers. The Canadian Wheat Board is controlled by a board of directors elected by farmers through legislation passed in the House.
In fact, there is no commercial organization in the country more transparent than the Canadian Wheat Board. It upholds its tranparencies in a number of ways. First, there is the elected board of directors who have to stand for election. Second, there is the annual report that is presented to the minister of agriculture. In fact, the member for Brandon—Souris, if he so desired, and I imagine he does, would be able to bring the Canadian Wheat Board before the standing committee on agriculture and question the board in terms of its activities. Can he do that with Cargill Grain and those other commercial grain institutions that he seems to be supporting in the guise of attacking the Canadian Wheat Board?
Next, there are the district meetings held in all the elected districts across western Canada. As well, there is the monthly newsletter that goes out from the Canadian Wheat Board. Also, there is the auditor general, who looks at the annual report of the Canadian Wheat Board.
How much more transparent does this organization have to be in order for the member to understand the fact that certain commercial information should not be made available to the competition?
I also want to point out that the member for Cypress Hills—Grasslands was on the typical Canadian Alliance rant against the Canadian Wheat Board. I want to underline the fact, in disagreement with what he had to say, that the bill would hurt primary producers. It would seriously hurt farmers in western Canada.
If some of these members would tour the Canadian Wheat Board head office in Winnipeg, they would see how it gathers its market intelligence, how it is one of the best sellers out there in terms of being able to maximize returns, and how, through its system of pooling, it is able to prevent negative competition within Canada and maximize what is in the international market and efficiently get the maximum returns from the international marketplace back to primary producers. If they would look at that business operation, they would see why the Canadian Wheat Board is so often so able to beat the competition. If the members opposite did a little research, they would find that the Canadian Wheat Board, in terms of some analyses that have been done, has been able to beat the open market pretty nearly all the time, not all the time, but most of the time, in terms of maximizing returns to primary producers.
The member for Cypress Hills—Grasslands also talked about the culture of secrecy of the wheat board. That is another myth. Nothing is further from the truth. Earlier in my remarks I outlined the reports, the meetings, the annual report and the information base. There is no culture of secrecy at the Canadian Wheat Board. Indeed, it is the direct opposite.
In conclusion, the bill would very seriously hurt the farm community. As I said earlier, I should not be surprised, but I am amazed that the members opposite continue to use any vehicle to try to build on the myths that are out there rather than talking about the strengths of the Canadian Wheat Board and how it can be used to assist farmers in their time of need.
As I said earlier, the Canadian Wheat Board is farmer financed. This access to information proposal from the member for Brandon—Souris would in fact put it in the position of actually having to subsidize the competition. The member, through his efforts in the bill, would actually subsidize the competition, the likes of Cargill Grain and other grain export companies, by having the Canadian Wheat Board, through its farmer financed organization, provide information on markets, on the markets of other countries, on weather patterns and all that intelligence base that the Canadian Wheat Board uses to assist in its market intelligence to try to make the best sales possible.
Under the bill, all of this would possibly have to be turned over to the competition. In effect, the competition would have to spend far less time in research in terms of corporate operations because the member's bill would be actually subsidizing the competition against the very farm community he proposes to speak for.
It gives me great pleasure to stand and oppose a bill that would undermine our farm community in western Canada if it were allowed to pass in the House. It would also put the Canadian Wheat Board at a disadvantage with its commercial competition in terms of trying to maximize returns to primary producers.