Mr. Speaker, the parliamentary secretary says that some people do not hear. It is absolutely true. He has not been listening for a long while on the Wheat Board, so I will try again tonight.
The question asked of the government on December 3 was whether former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney had lobbied the government, as a member of the board of directors of the transnational grain company Archer Daniels Midland, to undermine the Canadian Wheat Board.
The government, which includes the Prime Minister, has relied on Mr. Mulroney to provide advice and guidance. One thing the former prime minister has demonstrated is his expertise at making money for his clients. ADM is most certainly a client the former prime minister would want to see succeed, especially since he is on the board of directors.
In that light, the House should be made aware of the following with respect to who will benefit from the government's fevered ideological drive to destroy the Canadian Wheat Board. The problem is, where are most of the winners from the government's drive to undermine the board? They are south of the 49th parallel in the United States, especially among the multinational grain trade.
The Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, in a November 2005 study, outlined the consequences of the loss of the Canadian Wheat Board and the Australian Wheat Board. It stated:
The...proposal to eliminate monopoly export rights would effectively kill both the Canadian Wheat Board (CWB) and...the Australian Wheat Board....The elimination of the CWB and AWB Ltd would do nothing to increase export competition for grains; the giants of the industry (Cargill, Archer Daniels Midland, Bunge and Dreyfus) will basically absorb the Canadian and Australian supply into their existing global grain processing and trading businesses....CWB and AWB Ltd. offer an effective second-best solution to the market failures and imperfections inherent in bulk commodity trading. Their private counterparts are much less constrained by public oversight and, at least for the producers they deal with, offer less benefit.
A report prepared by the Center for Agricultural Policy and Trade Studies at North Dakota State University found that if the Wheat Board were to be eliminated:
The U.S. and Canadian markets would become more integrated without the CWB, making it possible for multinational grain companies to buy wheat in Canada and export it from U.S. ports.
The beneficiaries of the loss of the Canadian Wheat Board have been enumerated in many United States studies. It is unbelievable that the Government of Canada, in putting forward this proposal, failed to do any studies or economic analysis. In fact, a study prepared for United States Senator Kent Conrad in November 2004 found that:
If the CWB's single-desk authority is eliminated, the advantages enjoyed by the CWB will disappear and the United States may become more competitive in offshore markets.
Again, the U.S. is gaining at the expense of Canadians.
The efforts of the Conservative government to undermine the Canadian Wheat Board have attracted the appreciative attention of the United States wheat industry. It is that time the Canadian government worked for Canadian farmers.