Mr. Speaker, as I understand it there are two competing priorities on value added. I think it is fair to say that all politicians in the House, regardless of party, would like to see more value added, especially in the Canadian Prairies. It is one of the things that we were told was going to be a benefit of free trade and it has been pretty doggone slow in coming.
As I understand it, the difficulty with the situation in terms of pasta plants and the like is that the concept of single desk selling is price pooling, that is, everyone gets the same price for it. The problem is that if someone is then hiving off some especially top quality durum to go to a pasta plant, and if it does not seem to be viable for the company and the company says it has to have an incentive to buy the product, that seems to take away from the concept of price pooling. Therein lies the conundrum.
The Wheat Board says that it is continuing to work with these pasta plants and others who would like to do value added. Certainly this party would like to see that. It has not been resolved, but I do not think it is for lack of effort. I think there are a couple of competing principles. Maybe they can work it out. I do not know.