Mr. Speaker, I have a number of questions that I would like to ask the hon. member, but I know time is limited so I will ask two of them together and ask him to reply to both of them at the same time.
He finished his comments by talking about the respect the government shows for democracy. That may be a debatable topic, but I will not get into that now.
I would ask the hon. member how he interprets the results of the Canadian Wheat Board producer-director elections in his own constituency, where the producer-director elected in that area of southwestern Saskatchewan and southeastern Alberta has been elected and re-elected several times. In fact, he holds the position in complete opposition to the position taken by that member of Parliament. It would appear that farmers in that area have expressed their view specifically on Canadian Wheat Board issues by repeatedly electing and re-electing the director in that area who supports the single desk. I wonder if the hon. gentleman could explain that contradiction.
My second question is this. On the barley plebiscite and the middle option, option (b), that he described earlier in his remarks and that purports to put forward the dual marketing proposition, can he assure producers that when that option (b) refers to the Canadian Wheat Board it is the Canadian Wheat Board that farmers know today with a single desk? Or is it some other concoction that is not properly named the Canadian Wheat Board in that middle option? I think that point of clarity is extremely important, because what that middle option purports to say is that we can have the open market and we can have the single desk together at the same time. I would be grateful if the hon. gentleman could clarify the point of whether or not under option (b) there will be any single desk.