Mr. Speaker, the question we are debating in the adjournment debate tonight was asked of the minister on February 28 and it stemmed from the minister and his government's deliberate effort to undermine and malign the reputation of not only the Canadian Wheat Board, but of the minister's own hand-picked president and CEO of the Canadian Wheat Board.
The issue was and remains the minister's complete refusal to acknowledge that an Algerian news story, which implied that the CWB had undersold grain into the Algerian market, was factually incorrect and that it perpetuated what in effect was a misleading and false story.
However, that is not unusual for the government opposite in its drive to the ideological agenda that it is on which is that its members take the position to not let the facts get in the way of a good story.
It is a government that has demonstrated a willingness to use tactics to undermine the CWB, which violates the very democratic principles that any government worthy of respect should adhere to. Not only has the government intentionally assaulted the character of the president and CEO, it has engaged in the use of intimidation, it has fired Wheat Board directors and it has tampered with voters' lists and directors' elections. It used marked ballots in the recent barley plebiscite and has absolutely refused to respect the will of Parliament, not once but twice.
Since that time, we now have regulations, which the government has brought forward to undermine the Canadian Wheat Board by removing barley from the board, which are of questionable legality. The Canadian Wheat Board, in its response to the minister's backdoor effort to undermine the Wheat Board, stated:
The CWB's legal liability as it relates to broken contracts is by no means distinct from farmers' liability.
It is a government that has no interest in the harm it inflicts on western grain farmers or on farmers generally or in terms of the international reputation of the Canadian Wheat Board. When a Canadian marketing agency is respected to the extent that the Canadian Wheat Board is around the world and it violates its contracts as a result of government orders, that hurts the reputation of every Canadian institution and agency.
The government made this move by basically acting retroactively and injuring those contracts and that reputation. All of this is part of the same ideological thinking of the Conservative regime. It has demonstrated a complete contempt for western grain farmers by not allowing for a free, open and honest plebiscite based on questions drafted by farmers and farm organizations themselves. It has demonstrated a contempt for Parliament by ignoring the will of the majority of this House.
However, the question really relates to the fact that the government continues to perpetuate false information that it alleges was in an Algerian news story.