Mr. Speaker, it is good that the member opposite has chosen to stay away from the topic of his question. It showed how out of touch he was in December, and it certainly shows how out of touch he is on this file today.
At the time he asked the question, he had the ridiculous notion that he was going to try to tie Brian Mulroney to the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food. His notion flopped back in December. It seems like he did not learn his lesson then, so he is back again.
I am told the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food does not personally know, nor has he ever met, Mr. Mulroney. I am also told that Archer Daniels Midland has never met with the minister. Therefore, the member for Malpeque, as usual, is batting zero. This time he is zero for two, and I think he is probably zero for 1,000 on the Canadian Wheat Board file.
He also thinks that giving freedom to farmers is somehow going to benefit big companies. We heard a bit of a rant about that today. He does not realize that farmers in western Canada see the Wheat Board as one of the biggest companies of all. Most of them want some freedom from it. A majority of them are asking for freedom.
It was interesting. His words were that if farmers had freedom, they would be more integrated with the United States market. Does this mean that this year Canadian farmers would have then had access to the $20 plus for durum to which the United States producers had access, while our producers were getting less than half of that?
We are used to hearing these illogical and extreme rants from the member opposite, but his question from December really shows that he has completely lost his grip on this file.