Mr. Speaker, the parliamentary secretary's response goes to the heart of his efforts to mislead and confuse.
Why would the parliamentary secretary quote from the article? He talked about the original document when in fact his own minister's appointed CEO has corrected that information. Mr. Arason, CEO of the Wheat Board, in a letter dated January 29, which the parliamentary secretary must know about, said this:
Mr. Kacem has advised us that some of his comments in the original article in the French daily were not properly interpreted by the journalist. Mr. Kacem feels the relationship between the CWB and OAIC is a commercial one first and foremost and that prices are based on international market values at the time of business.
A review of the original press article in French clearly shows that at no point does Mr. Kacem say that they enjoy 'very low prices'. The main message in the Algerian newspaper article centered on the positive commercial relationship the CWB and OAIC have enjoyed since the early seventies.
If the parliamentary secretary was unaware of that letter from the Wheat Board, for which he is directly responsible, he was derelict in his duties.