Mr. Speaker, I stand in the House to request an emergency debate on the government's refusal to hold a plebiscite pursuant to section 47.1 of the Canadian Wheat Board Act before introducing legislation to kill the single desk marketing system.
Section 47.1 of the Canadian Wheat Board Act clearly states:
The Minister shall not cause to be introduced in Parliament a bill that would exclude any kind, type, class or grade of wheat or barley, or wheat or barley produced in any area in Canada...unless...(a) the Minister has consulted with the board about the exclusion or extension; and, (b) the producers of the grain have voted in favour of the exclusion or extension, the voting process having been determined by the Minister.
Despite his ideological wanderings or rhetorical dissensions, the minister must let Wheat Board members decide if their sales and marketing arm should be allowed to continue to operate in its current form and protect farmers by selling the grains the board currently sells, namely wheat and barley, at the best price possible for its membership, or if it should be torn away from them without any thought to what will fill the void the government intends to create.
Rather than giving Canadian farmers the right to choose, he is telling them that while this may affect their livelihoods and small-town economies, their voice does not matter. He is telling them that he will not follow the act he is responsible for governing and that he will not protect western Canadian farmers or their rights under the act.
The institution of the Canadian Wheat Board is considered so sacrosanct as to have legislation created, such as that which exists in section 47.1 of the act, to prevent the very abuse that is being perpetrated by the minister.
Should you not allow the debate to go ahead, Mr. Speaker, any opportunity for western Canadian grain farmers to determine their own future with the single desk system will be foreclosed. You and you alone now stand between the law being followed and the law being violated.
Farmers feed Canadian families. They have earned the right to choose, and the government has not earned any sort of mandate to disenfranchise a single western Canadian grain producer by circumventing the Canada Wheat Board Act.
Given the reluctance of the minister to honour this particular provision of the act, the Canadian Wheat Board mailed 68,000 ballots to wheat and barley farmers across the prairies this summer. With a 56% participation rate, a majority of both wheat and barley farmers voted to maintain the single desk under the Canadian Wheat Board.
In 2005, an economic impact analysis conducted by PricewaterhouseCoopers revealed the positive economic impact for Winnipeg, for western Canadian farmers and for Canadians as a whole from the continued existence of the single desk marketing system.
It is not up to me, to any member of Parliament or to the minister to decide if the board should maintain its mandate or if it should be dissolved. It is up to farmers. I understand why western Canadian farmers would want it to continue to exist. What I do not understand is why the minister would want to dismantle an organization that is of major economic benefit to western Canada without asking them their opinion, as the law requires him to do.
The notion of self-determination has been codified in other pieces of legislation in this country, whether it is aboriginal rights or the rights of employees to negotiate unfettered. When these rights are codified, it is done for very particular reasons. When granted, these rights are a clear statement by a government that these rights--the rights of farmers, of workers or of aboriginal Canadians--cannot be trodden upon without the whole engagement or consent of everyone involved.
This does not just protect the single desk system, but the right of Canadian farmers to determine their own destiny and their own livelihood.
The Prime Minister made it clear in his speech after the May 2 election that his government would be governing for all Canadians, not just Conservatives. Even Conservative farmers have approached me, concerned with the minister's Ahab-like pursuit of the destruction of the single desk.
Therefore, Mr. Speaker, for the reasons set out to you in my letter this morning, I request that you find that this issue meets the requirements for an emergency debate set out in subsections 52(5) and 52(6) of the Standing Orders, and that this House do now adjourn to address the requirement under section 47.1 of the Canadian Wheat Board Act for the Minister for the Canadian Wheat Board to hold a plebiscite before taking any action to change the current formation of the single desk marketing and sales system.