Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for St. John's South—Mount Pearl.
I am happy to rise in the House today to speak to a most important issue. I must first begin by commenting that most of my constituents are absolutely shocked by the actions of the government. They are shocked by the level of debate or, should I say, lack of debate the government has engaged in.
We are in the early stages of a majority government and yet the government is fast tracking legislation that is proving to be completely reckless. This is not the only piece of legislation that it is fast tracking, and it is shameful on its part.
As responsible parliamentarians, we must ask a very important question: What is the rush? Why does the government continue to silence the elected political body? Is it because it is ashamed of its position in this debate? Is it because it knows it is engaging in activities that will destroy small rural communities? Is this why it is stopping Canadians from being heard?
We hear them laughing on the other side and showing signs of disgust as we speak, but for the Conservatives it is only about what they want to do and hear as opposed to what Canadians have to contribute to the debate.
I believe we have been sent to Parliament to represent the will of the electorate. However, in doing so, we are also charged with the responsibility to not only champion but maintain the sanctity of the traditions of the House of Commons. Unfortunately, we have not seen this. What have we seen instead? We have seen time allocation after time allocation. We have seen that the government is uninterested in the opinions of Canadians. These actions show how little respect the Conservatives have for this political institution.
Since its inception in the 1920s, the Canadian Wheat Board has been the pillar of Canadian farm life on the Prairies. In its early days, what we now call the Wheat Board consisted of individual owners of modest sized farms pooling their wheat together. Why did they do this? They did this to get a better price for their wheat. In 1943, this process was then formalized with the creation of the single desk. The result has been the financial stability needed to allow prairie farming communities to survive. The result has been the prudent risk management needed to ensure farmers and their families can avoid catastrophe. The result has been the ability for Canadian family farms to survive in an era of big agriculture.
Today, the Canadian Wheat Board sells high-quality Canadian wheat, harvested by hard-working Canadian farmers, to buyers around the world.
In total, 70 countries and roughly 21 million tonnes of wheat and barley are marketed by the Canadian Wheat Board each year. It is the largest and most successful grain marketing company in the world. Despite its large size and formidable status as a global marketer of wheat, I am proud to say that the Wheat Board is a farmer-controlled board, consisting of farmers elected by farmers.
What is to become of our Wheat Board? Unfortunately, the government wants to get rid of it. It wants to get rid of the financial stability it has given us for generations of Canadians. It wants to do away with the prudent risk management it has provided to our small rural prairie communities. On top of that, it wants to get rid of it against the express wishes of the farmers themselves.
We must not stop reminding my colleagues on the other side of the House of the Canadian Wheat Board's plebiscite back in September that told us that a strong majority of farmers want to maintain the Wheat Board. They want to maintain their ability to market wheat and barley through the single desk system. We must not stop reminding them of the 62% of respondents who voted in favour of retaining the single desk for wheat and the 51% who voted to maintain it for barley. We must not stop reminding them of the 38,261 farmers who submitted mail-in ballots in the plebiscite.
The government now has the responsibility to say directly to those 38,261 farmers who spoke out in a dignified democratic fashion that it does not care about their opinion. It should not be this way. We should not be shutting farmers out of this debate. We should not be telling them that their opinion does not matter. We should be listening to them. We should be asking them what they want us to do. This is a democracy, after all.
A responsible government would examine the truth of the matter. A responsible government would ask what will happen to our modest sized family farms, what will actually happen to the communities in which they live.
It would be only responsible for us to look at Australia. Australia recently eradicated its single desk system and the result was not pretty. We saw the price for its wheat go from $99 per tonne over the price of American wheat to as low as $27 per tonne below the price of American wheat. The Australian wheat market saw the destruction of its domestically-owned wheat industry. In just three years, Australia went from having 40,000 wheat farmers running their own wheat system, to being customers of Cargill, an American-owned giant in the industry. We are all familiar with the Cargills.
What a shame. What a shame that so many farmers had to lose their farms. What a shame that they lost their farms while big agriculture swoops in and purchases them when a farmer is desperate.
Why, then, is the government going down the same path? Why is it deliberately siding with big business over our family farms?
If anyone were to ask me, the matter is simple. I was sent here to listen to the demands of my constituents. I am here to listen to their concerns and to fight for their interests. I know that my constituents truly appreciate and value local food in their communities. They like to know that the family farm can exist and that they can know their local farmers who work so hard to provide food for the rest of us.
For example, I have here an email from one of my local farmers on Manitoulin Island in my riding of Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing. She says, in referring to the Canadian Wheat Board, “This is one Board that was developed to assure fair prices to small farmers. We know that dismantling this Board will be difficult for farmers to get fair prices for their grains. We do not want food to be solely in the hands of the multinational corporations. Please let there be some room for the small farmers and for local food productions to survive”.
Local growers form the backbone of the communities in many parts of my riding. I know they would join me in fighting tooth and nail against anything trying to destroy their culture and way of life.
Perhaps what makes us different from them is that we on this side of the House stand up for our family farms. We stand up for the hard-working Canadian family. We stand up for the modest-size prairie wheat producer. We listen to their wants. We demand that their voices be heard. We do not sell them out to big businesses like the Conservatives do.
I am afraid that the Conservatives are only telling us half of the story. They are not telling the whole truth. They are not warning of the dangers that may come to prairie communities when smaller farmers lose their farms. They do not tell of the financial strain that could result from smaller producers being thrust out on their own in the global market. They do not talk of the risk associated with this change for the modest-size producer.
Perhaps the Conservatives are correct in a sense in that they are giving our farmers more freedom. However, what they are doing is freeing our farmers from the protection that the single desk provides. They are giving them freedom from financial stability, freedom from proven risk management, freedom to be bullied and bought by big agriculture. They are now freed from a guaranteed decent price on the global market.
As my time for debate is up, I will speak to the rest of my points in a few minutes.