Mr. Speaker, as I indicated, it was direct manipulation out of the Prime Minister's office to fire a CEO who was respected around the world. As a result, Canadian farmers have been injured.
However, the impact on democracy is the fact that there were farmers electing directors to a board. They recognized the CEO. They re-implemented him as a CEO for a $6 billion corporation, but because of orders from the PMO, the man was fired. That is an affront to a democratic institution.
The government has flatly refused to respect the demands and wishes of western grain farmers, as expressed through their organizations and the elected process set up under legislation in 1998. Worst, it has undermined and manipulated the right to democratically decide the future of the Canadian Wheat Board. It is costing economically and it is costing us dearly.
I have talked in the House before about Standard & Poor's lowering the credit rating of the Canadian Wheat Board. In its two page document it names the new Government of Canada as responsible for that lowered credit rating not once, not twice but eleven times. It says:
Since then, the government has banned CWB from advocating on its own behalf--
The Government of Canada put a gag order on a democratically farmer elected board. It has terminated the employment of the Canadian Wheat Board's president and CEO.That is a terrible deed.
It goes on to say:
--Standard & Poor's expects that government support of Canadian Wheat Board will continue to deteriorate as long as the current government lasts.
We are seeing an ideologically driven Prime Minister forcing his will on a democratically elected farmer institution that has been in place for three-quarters of a century, that markets on behalf of farmers and that brings an increased economy of roughly $622 million annually, according to studies. We are seeing the Prime Minister imposing his will against that agency just because he does not like it. That is an affront to democracy.
Has the government demonstrated a contempt for western grain farmers in Canadian institutions? Absolutely.
In the course of the Wheat Board director elections this past fall, the minister decided that he should manipulate the election. First, he had the gag orders, then he changed the voter list, taking 16,000 farmers off of it after the election was underway. In spite of those threats and undemocratic interventions by the Government of Canada, farmers returned a majority of pro-board directors in the election. Four out of five of the elected producers were in fact strong supporters of single desk selling.
However, it gets worse. We in the House have been long calling for a clear vote on the future of the Wheat Board on barley and wheat. In fact, the farmers put forward what they believed should be a ballot with a question on it that was clear, concise, direct and not confusing. It passed the agriculture committee, was debated in the House and on December 12 of last year, in a vote of 165 to 121, the majority of members in the House voted that the government place before western grain farmers the question for which farmers had asked. What did the minister do? He ignored that. He showed contempt for the House. It goes on and on.
He now has put before farmers what I would call a fraudulent question. I will quote from a Winnipeg pollster that calls the plebiscite that the minister is holding now “bizarre”.
Scott McKay, president of Probe Research, said the language the Conservatives are using for the three options on the barley vote are not only inconsistent but also far from neutral...
“These people are extremely incompetent or they are diabolical”, McKay said of those who designed the ballot's wording.
There is no question that the ballot itself probably comes out of the Prime Minister's Office because he wants to manipulate that to get the answer he wants.
To sum up, the Canadian Wheat Board is a farmer run organization. It was set up in 1998 with a board of directors and five appointed directors. Farmers are supposed to be running that agency. The Government of Canada never intervened before with directives, but the current government almost, on a weekly basis, sends directives to that marketing institution.
There were five government appointed directors on that agency, appointed for their expertise in marketing and international business. What did the government do? The CEO was fired because he did not agree with the Prime Minister. He agreed with and supported the farmers. The other four have been fired. One vacancy was up, the rest were fired and ideological people, who do not like the Wheat Board, were put in their place. Is that called democracy? I certainly do not.
However, the Prime Minister seems to stop at nothing in terms of getting his way. We have seen gag orders, fired directors, appointed ideologues, a fired CEO, a propaganda campaign and now a question that is unclear. The government should get back to democratic principles and accept the will of the House and the question that it has directed toward the government.