Mr. Speaker, it takes a great deal of courage for a member of the Conservative Party to stand up and ask why that party is not listening to farmers. There are prairie grain wheat farmers who have voted in a plebiscite to say that they want to retain the Canadian Wheat Board and yet the government wants to get rid of it. I ask the member who posed the question, why are he and his government not listening to farmers?
Although evidence is important, it is not something the government gives an ounce of credibility to. There was an interesting report entitled, “Performance Evaluation of the Canadian Wheat Board” which came out in 1996. The authors were three professors from three major universities, the University of Manitoba, the University of Saskatchewan and the University of Alberta.
The report states:
The single-desk selling system in Canada is viewed as something that facilitates transactions and is regarded by Brazilian buyers as a key to the confidence and reliability of purchasing wheat from Canada.
There are so many wonderful reasons to keep the Canadian Wheat Board. It brings so much value to our prairie farmers. Would the member not agree that is the case?