Mr. Speaker, the Canadian Wheat Board is staggering through another wretched season of grain marketing. It set the initial prices of durum so low that farmers laughed, although they wanted to cry. It played in the barley market until malt barley was being sold for feed. Spring wheat sits in farmers' bins while bills go unpaid. Its latest prediction is that western Canadian farmers will once again reduce their wheat acres next year.
What is the Canadian Wheat Board's response? Let us go boating. It now wants to take $70 million of farmers' money to purchase two Chinese freighters and launch a new shipping empire. If it cannot market grain, how can it handle boats? While it may fancy itself as a new Canada grain ship lines, it is more likely we will see a version of the Titanic running aground on Gilligan's Island.
The “Pirate of the Prairies” has already done enough damage. Farmers are tired of being pillaged.
The answer is not more CWB, but more freedom for western Canadian producers.