Madam Speaker, studies have indicated that abolishing the Canadian Wheat Board would take hundreds of millions of dollars out of the pockets of prairie producers and put them into the pockets of the shareholders of the private grain companies. People should remember that the Canadian Wheat Board is a non-profit organization. It is not even allowed to retain assets or income. All returns have to be returned to the producer. The profit margin will go to the big grain companies. In the case of this new pasta plant, it is salivating. It anticipates it will be able to get its grain cheaper, which means farmers will earn less.
While I am on my feet, let me also deal with an issue that the minister raised. He said that the only reason the pasta plant was being built was because the product would be value-added and that would happen more. In actual fact, in western Canada milling capacity has increased 11% from 2001 to 2011 and four new mills have been built in western Canada in 2011 compared to 10 years ago. Four new mills happened under the current situation, whereas in North Dakota there was not one new mill. In fact, the number of mills remained static.
Entrepreneurs could in fact add value to the raw product in Canada under the current system. The fact that they did not may be due to many reasons. However, the minister is misleading Canadians if he is saying that this is going to be a free market nirvana now and all of these mills are going to sprout out of the ground like mushrooms. It simply is not true.