Jake Hoeppner

[Canadian Wheat Board Act, February 17th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I was at a Weyburn meeting I think it was on January 20. There was a guest book with the signatures of some 600 people and I imagine they were all farmers.

The question was asked how many people would support single desk selling. Out of some 600 people, not one hand went up. When it was asked how many of those farmers wanted dual marketing, 85% to 90% of the hands went up. I am not saying that there was not one or two people or maybe a dozen who would have supported single desk selling. They were a little cautious in putting their hands up, but I thought that was a pretty good poll.

When I went to Alberta, I had the same experience meeting after meeting. There were 75% to 80% of the people who wanted a marketing choice. If that is not pretty good polling, I do not know what else to do.

The people were there physically. They took the opportunity to come out, to give their ideas and to put up their hands. That is what we do here in the House when we stand up. That is pretty good polling I would say.

[Canadian Wheat Board Act, February 17th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I can read all the reports I want, but I have the facts in black and white.

Not only that, when the customs and revenue people laid $165,000 worth of forfeitures against the farmer who received $250,000 in bonuses for selling outside the pooling system, he filed a complaint against customs and revenue. Customs and revenue have not filed a defence to date. It is shocking. They admitted they were wrong.

What is the government doing? It prosecutes one farmer and throws him into shackles and it gives another farmer $250,000 in bonuses for selling outside the pooling system. Is the government just working for the rich or is it working for the farm family which tries to maintain and keep ownership of their land? Which way does it want it? It is in black and white.

This book says there were $42 million in costs to operate the board. But what did we lose as far as getting a reasonable price when the judge said there is no mandate to sell at the best price? Mr. McMechan could have made $6 if he had hauled his barley 25 miles from his home and he got $2 from the wheat board. How much did it cost him to operate the wheat board? I do not think he made too much money on that deal. If I am right, he lost his farm.

[Canadian Wheat Board Act, February 17th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to address the first question about this government not being capable of doing what I said. I will go a little further than that.

When I asked in this House how the minister could throw one farmer into jail for selling his grain at the best price when another farmer was rewarded for getting $54 a tonne outside the pooling system, the minister said he did not know what the wheat board act said. He had to get Richard Klassen, the wheat board commissioner, to interpret it. And what did he say? He said “We have no mandate to sell that wheat for the best price. Those kinds of bonuses are legal outside the system”.

When the RCMP looked into it they said “He is right”. What can we do?

[Canadian Wheat Board Act, February 17th, 1998]

That is Canada. That is the Canadian Wheat Board. That is the Liberal government. That is the Canada we live in.

What did the judge do? He gave him a $2,000 fine and the crown prosecutor said hold it a minute, that is not tough enough, not for this terrible criminal. That is not enough, we have to increase that to $20,000, and that is what he did. So they got rid of one more farmer.

That is why farmers are mad today and why they are not going to sit by and look at legislation like this and leave it go. They are going to change it and they are going to make that wheat board accountable and they are going to make it transparent.

It happened before that farmers had to take the bull by the horns and do something, and they will do it this time. There is no rule, no law in this country that dictates that kind of treatment. Rapists and murderers are allowed to run loose on the streets and a farmer is thrown in jail for selling his grain at a proper price. That is Canada. That is the Liberal government.

When the minister is asked just to put a preamble into that bill that will say we have to be accountable to the farmer and sell the grain for the best price, he cannot do it. That is not democracy. Why not make a bill that spells out clearly what that bill should be doing? Oh no, I know what I have spent to get the wheat board to say finally we have absolutely no authority or responsibility or duty to a farmer. That bill is there for the government and the corporation. That is there and if hon. members want to change it, they can.

Tonight hon. members can be men and women who stand up for democracy and defeat this bill, because that is what every farmer in western Canada has said so far. Tear it up, start all over again because we need a wheat board that is accountable and that is going to work for us, not just for us but for this country, something that will protect democracy and will protect the rights of individuals.

If this bill is implemented the way it is, it sets at risk every marketing scheme in this country. It sets at risk every RRSP plan. It sets at risk every pension plan. Everything can be confiscated if this is the type of bill we are going to pass in this House.

I hope the Liberals take it to heart tonight and show that they are men and women who work for this country. Stand up and vote against the government. They will go down in history just like Andy McMechan some day will probably have his face carved on those snow carvings, being a real hero just like Louis Riel.

[Canadian Wheat Board Act, February 17th, 1998]

If the hon. member would like the documents, I can show them to him. I have them all in my office.

When they could not shut him down that way, what did they do? They caught him taking a load of barley across with his old trailer and a tractor. Because he had to have some income, he took a tractor and a trailer. When he came back, the government said “You cannot get $6 for that barley in the U.S. when the wheat board only wants to give you $2. That is criminal”.

The Liberals were going to stick a forfeiture on the tractor and he said “I am sorry, sir, I have to use the front end loader of that tractor to feed my cattle or they will starve. I cannot do it all by fork”. Do you know what the crown prosecutor did to this man, Mr. Speaker? He gave him six months in jail for taking his tractor home to feed his cattle. Six months in shackles.

[Canadian Wheat Board Act, February 17th, 1998]

By order in council. What did they do? They through thousands of dollars of forfeitures against him. They took his truck. In 1995 all of a sudden they figured they could not beat this little farmer either. What did they do? They got farm credit to put a collection agency on him to collect the bill of $27 that was overdue for a year. That is how this Liberal government treats farmers.

[Canadian Wheat Board Act, February 17th, 1998]

Madam Speaker, it has been an interesting morning. I would like to announce that my colleague from Yorkton—Melville will split the time with me.

I heard the question asked today why are farmers against ten elected directors. I will tell members exactly why they are against it. They have had over a dozen elected advisory board members and they have never represented the farmers who elected them, to work for them and to try and promote things that make the board more transparent and accountable to farmers.

They would not even come out and support the board when the courts ruled that it had no mandate to act on behalf of farmers but rather on government.

What has happened recently is that it is not just the farmers who do not want the board anymore, the people working for the board are concerned that their jobs are going down the road if the board does not become transparent and accountable.

I got a document from the wheat board last weekend showing how much management deadwood is on that board. Out of 454 employees, there are 130 some with management titles. I can list them, every single one, if members want to know. There are 131 management people who are probably eligible for a huge pension and a severance package. If the hon. member for Malpeque wants to look in the book and turn to compensation, it says there is $21.991 million in wages. Out of that there is another $5.139 million in benefits, like EI, pension, group insurance and medical; 24.5% per cent are benefits out of a $21 million wage package.

That is better than being a Liberal MP. They should start running to be elected to the wheat board. That is where the big bucks are. The farmers starve but the wheat board lives pretty well. That is why farmers are getting disgusted. That is why they are going to change the system. It will not take a government to change it. They will do it themselves. Farmers have done it before and they will do it again.

Why are farmers so dead set against a marketing system that did work for them? Because of the secrecy and suspicion in it. Nobody trusts the wheat board anymore. Why do they not trust it? In 1994 when we had the fusarium wheat in southern Manitoba, the wheat board said we could not sell that wheat because there was no market. The farmers could dump it, burn it, do anything they wanted.

David Sawatzky found a market for it. He exported I do not know how many millions of dollars worth. What did he get for it? Wheat that was worthless. He got thrown in jail. What did he do? He went to the law books and he started studying law. He won the case. The government was not happy with that so it appealed it. He beat it again. That is why farmers are upset. That is why farmers are going to beat this lousy system. That is corrupt.

I hope I am not getting too loud because I do get excited. Mr. Speaker's nerves are a little better, so I can start going ahead. Mr. Speaker, you can turn your ear this way because the Liberal government's hearing is kind of bad, but the Speaker sometimes does hear things that he should not. We will forgive you for that.

That is one example. I want to point out another example. Andy McMechan was another one of those farmers who trucked over a couple of million bushels of fusarium rotten wheat. What did they do to him? The minister changed the Customs Act as soon as Sawatzky was declared innocent.

[Canadian Wheat Board Act, February 17th, 1998]

With pleasure? It was closure.

[Canadian Wheat Board Act, February 17th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to listen to the debate. If the hon. member for Palliser believes so strongly in a monopoly, why should we not create a housing monopoly so that everybody would live in houses owned by the government and would pay it for that?

That is the way some communist countries have gone. Would the member agree that is the way to go? If one monopoly is so good for one sector, why not have them all under monopolies? If it is good for me it should be good for the next guy. What is good for the goose is good for the gander. How would the member for Palliser deal with that issue?

Maybe we should have a monopoly on cars. The government could own all the cars as the government did in the Soviet Union. We know what happened over there. They are all on a junk pile right now. That is how good that monopoly was.

Why not a monopoly on lawyer services or teachers? Why not turn the country into something that is prosperous like we have seen communist countries become? Are they right on the world scene today? If it were not for capitalists like us they would all be starving to death. Is that the kind of system the member wants?

[Canadian Wheat Board Act, February 9th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, if I have misinterpreted the minister, I wish the government would explain itself. When a government or an individual does not abide by the rulings of the court, I think they say they are not subject to the law. That is what is so serious about this statement in the House. I know there are about a hundred court cases right now.

If it should be ruled that these farmers are innocent, the government can just go out and say “Hey, we do not abide by that law. You will still be imprisoned. You will still not be able to market your grain.” What is going on here? This is a democracy.

In the amendments to this bill made by the hon. member for Prince George, B.C., he has tried to make this bill accountable by saying that the wheat board should operate under the auspices of the auditor general and the information act and that they should be able to have an input into how this bill or this act is run. That would make farmers happy. That would make the farmers put their trust back into this wheat board. The majority of farmers want that option. They want to have the option to market their grain at the best price that is available.

If that is not feasible in this bill, I think it will become more divisive and there will be more farmers going against the wheat board. It will probably destroy itself. When I about four years ago did my first press conference, I said that my farmers came with the complaints that they had against the wheat board.

All they wanted was for the government or some agency to look into those allegations to see whether they were right or wrong. They did not want to get rid of the wheat board, they wanted the wheat board to be made accountable.

I asked the solicitor general to do it and members know what happened with that. The farmers laid complaints with the local RCMP. Their complaints were stopped further up the line for some reason or other.

They had evidence that they had been deducted freight and elevation and cleaning charges on their grain to Thunder Bay when it never went to Thunder Bay. It just went right across the border about 10 miles into the U.S.

Not only that, but now we find out not only were they originally charged, they were also charged on the buy-back, again freight to Thunder Bay and cleaning and elevation charges. Those farmers have actually lost $40 a tonne on their grain which is over $1 a bushel.

That is why we, as the Reform Party, want to make the wheat board accountable. We do not want to destroy the wheat board, but we want to make it accountable and answerable to the farmers.

What is wrong with electing 15 directors instead of 10? What is wrong with the farmers being allowed to hire their own CEO and have that board run the way they like it? What is wrong with that? Is that not the way a democracy is supposed to run?

It scares the daylights out of me when I see one part of our industry being subjected to this type of treatment. They do not have the recourse that other industries have.

Some of the automotive dealers in my constituency said “Jake, if you don't stop this nonsense that farmers can't sell their grain for the best price, we're going to start objecting to this issue. If I could not sell my vehicles for the best price or if I could not take in a car in trade that somebody else wanted to get rid of, we would not abide by the law. We would be taking civil disobedience.”

We do not want to see that. We want to have an accountable, democratic system in this country that treats everybody fairly. That is all that farmers in western Canada want. They want to be efficient. They want to be accountable. They want to pay their taxes. They want to have a livelihood that puts food on their table. They want to be treated fairly.

When we look at the efficiencies and the productivity of our agriculture industry, there are none that will come second to us in the world. They have done it under circumstances where they have not had the freedom to get the best price for their products.

What would they be able to accomplish if they had that opportunity to market their grain at the best price that was offered to them? What would they not be able to do when they had a wheat board that was accountable to them, that would look after their interests, that if there were objectionable things going on, if there were irregularities, somebody like the auditor general would look into it.

When I asked the auditor general four years ago to give me an idea how much interest was charged on the debt that taxpayers were probably servicing, he could not do that.

There was no way that he could access the books of the Canadian Wheat Board to see what the interest was. What I found unbelievable when I talked to the auditor general and wanted to know why he could not access the bookssas that he did not know but that he could tell me one thing, that he still had to sign the audit of the Canadian Wheat Board as being correct. Even if he could not look into the books, his signature had to go on that document that it is accurate.

I can see why the auditor general would come out this morning and say that he wished he would be named auditor of the Canadian Wheat Board. That is the direction to go. That is what the amendments in this piece of legislation say. I urge every member in this House to vote for the revamping of this wheat board with the auditor general and the information officer to be part of it.