Mr. Speaker, there is something particularly egregious when corporate management takes the money of shareholders and spends it in opposition to shareholder interests. It is a very sad day when management comes to believe that a company exists for the benefit of the managers and not for the benefit of the shareholders.
In the corporate world, shareholders can sell their shares when management abuses company finances. The same cannot be said for farmers who are forced, against their will, to subsidize expensive PR campaigns produced by the Canadian Wheat Board. If the Canadian Wheat Board were voluntary, this would be fine, but farmers must sell their grain to the CWB. They cannot opt out of the Wheat Board no matter how self-servingly Wheat Board bureaucrats act.
Proponents of a single desk Canadian Wheat Board bitterly complain when elected officials campaign for a dual market, but they are only too happy to forcibly take money from all farmers to run their propaganda campaigns.
The Wheat Board may not know how to market grain, but it is in a class by itself at marketing hypocrisy.