Mr. Speaker, the issue with respect to what historically was called the “Crow's Nest rate” is that it ran into a serious impediment in the mid-1990s with the new World Trade Organization, which explicitly ruled that this form of structure in our freight rates constituted an illegal subsidy for the future. Accordingly, the government had to react with changes that provided a period of compensation for the loss of the subsidized rate and it tried to put the system on a more commercial basis for the long term into the future.
That was a very difficult transition for farmers. Those in the farming community in our country deserve a great deal of credit for having the strength and ingenuity to work their way through that period of great change and emerge successfully at the other side. However, they now need fair legislation that will give them the service they are paying for, and that is why Bill C-52 should be better than it is.