Mr. Speaker, I move that the sixth report of the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food, presented to the House on Wednesday, December 6, be concurred in.
This debate, while on the specific motion of the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food, has a series of questions in it that we believe should be used in any future plebiscite on the Canadian Wheat Board, but it is about much more than just those questions.
This debate is really about governance, justice and fair play. This debate is about a Prime Minister who is enforcing his ideology on prairie grain farmers regardless of whether farmers agree with him or not. This debate is about undermining the democratic principles that exist within Canada.
I will turn first, to emphasize this point in terms of democratic principles, to an article in the Red Deer Advocate by an individual by the name of Ken Larsen, who said:
Stephen Harper's Conservatives have identified an internal enemy that does not fit their ideology. Using their power as the government, they have started a campaign of suppression and disruption supported by a flood of propaganda and misinformation, utilizing the federal bureaucracy.
The target of this attack, an organization 100 per cent funded and democratically controlled by its members, has been permanently stripped of its right to free speech by ministerial order.
Their organization is also the subject of Harper government propaganda attacks on almost a weekly basis--