Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have this last few minutes to speak about the importance of the Canadian Wheat Board, what it means in Manitoba and what it means to Canadians.
I am going to very quickly touch on three main points. My colleagues have spoken on a number of them. I want to talk about the tainted task force report. I want to talk about the Canadian Wheat Board II that is proposed and its difficulties against the giant American companies. I want to touch on the loss of the Canadian Wheat Board and the impact it will have on my home city of Winnipeg, which is significant.
I want to say that the tainted Migie task force is totally lacking in two key areas. There was no information on who was consulted. We know that producers were not. We know that academic experts on grain economics were not. We know that provincial agricultural ministers were not. We know there were no public meetings. We know there was no list of submissions. We know there was no input except from those the government wanted to hear.
There was no discussion in the report about the economic advantages of destroying the Canadian Wheat Board. There is no economic analysis of any sort. There is even no argument presenting the economic advantage of dual marketing versus single desk. Why?
The task force report states that hopper car assets, the building on Main Street in Winnipeg and a contingency fund will be transitioned to the new Canadian Wheat Board II. This package is worth approximately $109 million.
The international grain trade, as we all know, is dominated by five very large players. Cargill, Archer-Daniels-Midlands, Bunge, Louis Dreyfus and ConAgra simply dwarf the Canadian Wheat Board.
For example, Archer-Daniels-Midland's net earnings for the quarter just ended equalled $403 million, $292.3 million more than the assets that the Canadian Wheat Board would receive. ADM has assets of $16.3 billion. How the tainted task force members and my colleagues opposite think that the new Canadian Wheat Board II could compete against such a giant is clearly flawed logic, exactly like the report states.
Archer-Daniels-Midland has a board director named Brian Mulroney, the former prime minister of Canada. What a convenience to the current Prime Minister.
The Americans have tried for years through the WTO to eliminate CWB single desk marketing. It is what they want. It was reported in Inside U.S. Trade magazine that “the timeline is not crucial to U.S. producers, so long as Canada eliminates the monopoly powers”.
The loss to Winnipeg is significant: 2,200 jobs in Winnipeg, 460 jobs at the Wheat Board, more than $66 million in wages and salaries, and a gross provincial income impact of $86 million.
We need a plebiscite.
In this House we speak of laws every day. We speak of new laws and of upholding laws already in existence. The Canadian Wheat Board Act is the law when it comes to grain farmers.
What we need is this: that the farmers will decide, that there will be a plebiscite held with a clear question, and that we will all abide by a democratically arrived at decision by the farmers. The provisions of the Wheat Board provide this mechanism that will settle the debate. It is incumbent upon us as legislators to honour the law of this land.