Madam Speaker, the Canadian Wheat Board has served the prairie farmer for over six decades now. All in all, we would find overwhelming support for that Wheat Board over that period of time.
The Canadian Wheat Board has been highly successful at garnering a wonderful brand that ultimately has allowed it to get into markets and to maximize markets because countries from around the world recognize the Canadian Wheat Board and its efforts, and the way in which it has played such a strong role, in terms of feeding the world, and that food comes from our Prairies.
I look at what the government would actually do by the bill that it is pushing through the House of Commons. What the government would really do is destroy family farms. What it would really do is hurt rural communities.
We look to the government to table, to provide any information, any credible information, any studies that it has conducted, that would clearly show that the actions that it is taking are for the betterment of the prairie farmers.
The government members have stood up time and time again to say they believe that this is all about freedom and that this is something that has to be done in order to achieve freedom. That is the only argument that I see the government bringing forward to date on this issue. I have not seen any documents demonstrating how the rural community would prosper and how our wheat producers would prosper in any tangible way.
Instead, what I witnessed is a Prime Minister who has a personal agenda, and that personal agenda can be dated back to before he was even the prime minister or leader of the Reform Party or the Conservative Party of today. For some odd reason, the Prime Minister has had it in for the Canadian Wheat Board for so many years. Because he now has a majority government, he believes he has a mandate, the mandate may be in his own mind, to override what the prairie farmer really and truly wants.
The prairie farmer wants to retain the Wheat Board. We know that because there was a plebiscite. Even though there was a moral and legal obligation for the Prime Minister to conduct a plebiscite, he chose not to. The reason he chose not to conduct a plebiscite was because the Prime Minister had a very good sense, based on experience, that he would not be able to win the plebiscite. He felt that by not conducting a plebiscite that the Conservatives would be able to get away with killing the Wheat Board as we know it today.
A plebiscite was conducted, not by the government, by a third party, sponsored through the Wheat Board. It saw how important it was to have the plebiscite. Over 20,000 grain producers, farmers, who live in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta, sent a very strong message, over 60%, that the Canadian Wheat Board was something of great value and we needed to retain it.
Now, we have the government somehow believing that it still has the mandate. If it were to still believe that it has a legitimate mandate, I would suggest it do what the law prescribes and conduct the plebiscite.
However, I do not believe for a moment that the government is going to do that because it is not about facts. It has nothing to do with what is in the best interests of prairie farmers. It has everything to do with this personal hatred that our current Prime Minister has for the Canadian Wheat Board.
I want to quote the Globe and Mail from October 17. I made reference to this the other day.
Prime Minister--
Fill in the blank with today's Prime Minister's name.
--has a message for all the critics of his government’s plan to end the monopoly of the Canadian Wheat Board: Get over it.
It goes on:
It’s time for the wheat board and others who have been standing in the way to realize that this train is barrelling down a prairie track...You’re much better to get on it than to lie on the tracks because this is going ahead.
Some 20,000 farmers disagree. The Prime Minister is asking those 20,000-plus farmers to get on the track. I find that highly disrespectful. I have never witnessed something of that nature in my 20-plus years of being involved in the parliamentary process.
I would suggest that there are some things that the Prime Minister could do to try to redeem himself to the prairie farmer. The first thing he could do is to agree to hold the plebiscite, recognize the value of a plebiscite, and then respect the wishes of the plebiscite. The Liberal Party of Canada will respect the plebiscite. We will listen to what our prairie farmers are saying.
We have had member after member of the Conservative Party stand up and say that they went home over the weekend and had all this wonderful support for what they are doing, and that we should continue to move forward. I, too, live in the west, and over the weekend I met with prairie farmers who indicated that this is a bad thing and it needs to be stopped.
There are many more prairie farmers agreeing with the farmers I met with than there are who agree with members from the other side of this House.
Earlier today in question period I asked why prairie farmers were not being allowed to voice their concerns to a committee of this House. Instead of a committee of this House dealing with this bill here in the Ottawa bubble, why do we not allow that committee to go to Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta? It could listen to what prairie farmers actually have to say about this bill.
I have been in legislative forums before where we have committees. We were open and invited public participation. Why not allow that? Why not afford those prairie farmers, the ones the government claims to want to represent, the ones the government says are supporting them, the opportunity to come before a committee? They should not have to fly to Ottawa.
The committee should get out of the Ottawa bubble, go to the prairie provinces, and afford those wheat producers the opportunity to say whether they like what the government is doing or they do not like what the government is doing.
What is the government of afraid? I suspect that if we do not do it, it will be for the same reason the government does not support a plebiscite because it believes it will not win. I suspect the government knows full well that if a committee went to the Prairies, a vast majority of those making presentations would be saying, “Please, do not do this. The Wheat Board is too important to the Prairies. It is too important to our prairie producers. It is too important for our rural communities”.
I would like to invite members of the government caucus to participate this Friday, October 28, in a rally of farmers in Winnipeg. There is a day of activities. If any of them would like to participate and do not have the agenda, I would be more than happy to provide it to them. I am sure they will be afforded the opportunity to address our farmers and others.
As much as I talk about prairie farmers, there are many concerned people who live on the Prairies today that recognize the value of the CWB and I appeal to the government to do likewise, recognize the value of the Canadian Wheat Board and the wonderful things it has done for us.