moved:
That Bill C-18 be amended by deleting Clause 7.
That Bill C-18 be amended by deleting Clause 9.
That Bill C-18 be amended by deleting Clause 12.
Madam Speaker, I thank my seconder, the member for Sudbury, for reinforcing our opposition to this bill and helping us to move these amendments. I also want to recognize and extend my gratitude to the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands for doing her part to try to correct what we believe is an extremely flawed and even, may I say, dangerous piece of legislation.
I will begin my remarks by saying that I believe the entire process and the federal government's treatment of this bill has been a sham and a travesty from the word go. We are of the view that the fast-tracking of this bill does a disservice and an injustice to the very prairie farm producers whose livelihoods would be dramatically affected and impacted by this bill.
The public should know, if they are not already aware, that the extreme fast-tracking of this bill resulted in only two committee hearings of four hours each where not a single farmer was heard. There was no consultation, no co-operation, no accommodation of the reasonable concerns that have been brought forward by producers, farm organizations and people in the rural areas who would be affected by the loss of their shortline railways, the producer cars, and all the thousands of things that are impacted by abolishing the Canadian Wheat Board. None of them have been given voice and none of them have had the opportunity to be heard in the context of this debate.
I would caution the government that, when it does this habitually, this chronic, habitual abuse of parliamentary procedure, it threatens to undermine the very integrity of our parliamentary democracy. I have been here 14 years and I have never seen anything like it in my life. The government has lowered the bar and I am concerned that it is doing irreversible damage to the integrity of our parliamentary institutions.
I would remind the government that good governance is a fundamental prerequisite for prosperity. The government thinks that its ideas have primacy over all other Canadians' ideas, that no other voices need to be heard as it implements its agenda. It has a legitimate right to put forward legislation but it does not have a right to undermine, sabotage, diminish and erode the fragile construct that is the Canadian Parliament.
That is the frustration that we have on the opposition benches. The Conservatives represent a majority in the House of Commons but they do not represent a majority of Canadians. How can they be so arrogant as to assume that the other 60% of Canadians who did not vote for them and who maybe do not support their agenda do not have a right to be heard?
No one has a monopoly on good ideas. Canada in itself is a fragile construct. The Parliament of Canada is a manifestation of that co-operation that keeps this fragile federation together. The government is chipping away and eroding, and I honestly do not even think it realizes the damage it is doing.
I will move to the motions that we have put forward today seeking to ameliorate and mitigate some of the impact of this bill. I will say from the beginning that I am sick and tired of the cutesy names that the government is inventing for all of its pieces of legislation. This bill is not about marketing freedom. It is about the freedom to sell grain for less.
With every one of its bills, the government makes up some editorialized comment and tries to put it off as the actual name of the bill. The real name of this bill is an act to reorganize the Canadian Wheat Board, but I believe it is an act to abolish the Canadian Wheat Board. Step by step, incrementally, the government is on this ideological crusade to abolish what we believe is a great Canadian institution, and one of those manifestations of a unique Canadian co-operation that is acting in the best interests of the producer instead of in the best interests of the big agrifood giants that will be the beneficiaries of this huge transfer of wealth.
The one thing we know about this bill is that it would take hundreds of millions of dollars out of the pockets of prairie farmers and put it into the pockets of the shareholders of the big agricorp and agrifood conglomerate giants that have been salivating over this market share ever since the Wheat Board was first created.
It is no surprise that Brian Mulroney is on the board of directors of Archer Daniels Midland, one of the big three that will gobble up this market share. He billed $650,000 worth of billings in the last two years alone as a member of the board of directors. People do not get that kind of money just for attending board meetings. They get that kind of money for using their influence to push the government into something that is not in the best interests of farmers. It is in the best interests of a very special privileged few, and that is the Cargills, Viterra and the other agrifood giants.
An example of how the Conservatives are trampling on the democratic rights of prairie farmers and denying them the right to vote is that, by virtue of this bill, they will fire all 15 members of the board of directors, 10 of whom were elected by prairie farmers, and replace them with a board of four members appointed by the government. It is a $6 billion a year corporation, one of the largest and most successful grain marketing companies in the world, and the Conservatives will appoint four of their stooges. I presume they have picked them out already. They are probably some failed Conservative candidates or some bagmen who did yeoman's due service to the political party of their choice--