Kevin Lamoureux

[Business of Supply, October 25th, 2011]

Madam Speaker, I thank the member for the concern that she expresses in regard to this important issue. We do need to recognize that the bill would kill many family farms. It would put farmers in positions in which they are going to have to look for alternatives and in many cases it will mean getting out of the farming community.

That is why news agencies like The Economist have said that we are going to see rural communities hurt because farmers and their disposable income contribute to the well-being of many rural communities in many different ways. The long-term impact of the bill's passage will be to the detriment for our rural communities and many wheat producers.

[Business of Supply, October 25th, 2011]

Madam Speaker, the Canadian Wheat Board has served the prairie farmer for over six decades now. All in all, we would find overwhelming support for that Wheat Board over that period of time.

The Canadian Wheat Board has been highly successful at garnering a wonderful brand that ultimately has allowed it to get into markets and to maximize markets because countries from around the world recognize the Canadian Wheat Board and its efforts, and the way in which it has played such a strong role, in terms of feeding the world, and that food comes from our Prairies.

I look at what the government would actually do by the bill that it is pushing through the House of Commons. What the government would really do is destroy family farms. What it would really do is hurt rural communities.

We look to the government to table, to provide any information, any credible information, any studies that it has conducted, that would clearly show that the actions that it is taking are for the betterment of the prairie farmers.

The government members have stood up time and time again to say they believe that this is all about freedom and that this is something that has to be done in order to achieve freedom. That is the only argument that I see the government bringing forward to date on this issue. I have not seen any documents demonstrating how the rural community would prosper and how our wheat producers would prosper in any tangible way.

Instead, what I witnessed is a Prime Minister who has a personal agenda, and that personal agenda can be dated back to before he was even the prime minister or leader of the Reform Party or the Conservative Party of today. For some odd reason, the Prime Minister has had it in for the Canadian Wheat Board for so many years. Because he now has a majority government, he believes he has a mandate, the mandate may be in his own mind, to override what the prairie farmer really and truly wants.

The prairie farmer wants to retain the Wheat Board. We know that because there was a plebiscite. Even though there was a moral and legal obligation for the Prime Minister to conduct a plebiscite, he chose not to. The reason he chose not to conduct a plebiscite was because the Prime Minister had a very good sense, based on experience, that he would not be able to win the plebiscite. He felt that by not conducting a plebiscite that the Conservatives would be able to get away with killing the Wheat Board as we know it today.

A plebiscite was conducted, not by the government, by a third party, sponsored through the Wheat Board. It saw how important it was to have the plebiscite. Over 20,000 grain producers, farmers, who live in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta, sent a very strong message, over 60%, that the Canadian Wheat Board was something of great value and we needed to retain it.

Now, we have the government somehow believing that it still has the mandate. If it were to still believe that it has a legitimate mandate, I would suggest it do what the law prescribes and conduct the plebiscite.

However, I do not believe for a moment that the government is going to do that because it is not about facts. It has nothing to do with what is in the best interests of prairie farmers. It has everything to do with this personal hatred that our current Prime Minister has for the Canadian Wheat Board.

I want to quote the Globe and Mail from October 17. I made reference to this the other day.

Prime Minister--

Fill in the blank with today's Prime Minister's name.

--has a message for all the critics of his government’s plan to end the monopoly of the Canadian Wheat Board: Get over it.

It goes on:

It’s time for the wheat board and others who have been standing in the way to realize that this train is barrelling down a prairie track...You’re much better to get on it than to lie on the tracks because this is going ahead.

Some 20,000 farmers disagree. The Prime Minister is asking those 20,000-plus farmers to get on the track. I find that highly disrespectful. I have never witnessed something of that nature in my 20-plus years of being involved in the parliamentary process.

I would suggest that there are some things that the Prime Minister could do to try to redeem himself to the prairie farmer. The first thing he could do is to agree to hold the plebiscite, recognize the value of a plebiscite, and then respect the wishes of the plebiscite. The Liberal Party of Canada will respect the plebiscite. We will listen to what our prairie farmers are saying.

We have had member after member of the Conservative Party stand up and say that they went home over the weekend and had all this wonderful support for what they are doing, and that we should continue to move forward. I, too, live in the west, and over the weekend I met with prairie farmers who indicated that this is a bad thing and it needs to be stopped.

There are many more prairie farmers agreeing with the farmers I met with than there are who agree with members from the other side of this House.

Earlier today in question period I asked why prairie farmers were not being allowed to voice their concerns to a committee of this House. Instead of a committee of this House dealing with this bill here in the Ottawa bubble, why do we not allow that committee to go to Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta? It could listen to what prairie farmers actually have to say about this bill.

I have been in legislative forums before where we have committees. We were open and invited public participation. Why not allow that? Why not afford those prairie farmers, the ones the government claims to want to represent, the ones the government says are supporting them, the opportunity to come before a committee? They should not have to fly to Ottawa.

The committee should get out of the Ottawa bubble, go to the prairie provinces, and afford those wheat producers the opportunity to say whether they like what the government is doing or they do not like what the government is doing.

What is the government of afraid? I suspect that if we do not do it, it will be for the same reason the government does not support a plebiscite because it believes it will not win. I suspect the government knows full well that if a committee went to the Prairies, a vast majority of those making presentations would be saying, “Please, do not do this. The Wheat Board is too important to the Prairies. It is too important to our prairie producers. It is too important for our rural communities”.

I would like to invite members of the government caucus to participate this Friday, October 28, in a rally of farmers in Winnipeg. There is a day of activities. If any of them would like to participate and do not have the agenda, I would be more than happy to provide it to them. I am sure they will be afforded the opportunity to address our farmers and others.

As much as I talk about prairie farmers, there are many concerned people who live on the Prairies today that recognize the value of the CWB and I appeal to the government to do likewise, recognize the value of the Canadian Wheat Board and the wonderful things it has done for us.

[Business of Supply, October 25th, 2011]

Madam Speaker, the government is being very disrespectful to the farmers. A member stands up and says, “Well, we are not killing the Wheat Board.” The government will have to respect me for not listening to what it is saying, as opposed to listening to what over 20,000 prairie grain farmers are saying today, which is that they want the Canadian Wheat Board.

No matter how often the minister stands up and says that the government is not killing the Wheat Board, the prairie farmers have spoken very clearly through a plebiscite. Over 20,000 say that the government is killing the Canadian Wheat Board.

My question to the member is this: does she believe the 20,000-plus farmers who are saying it means the demise of the Wheat Board if the bill passes, or does she believe a member of the Conservative Party who, in trying to defend the government, continues to stand up and say that the government is not killing the Wheat Board? Who does the member believe?

[Business of Supply, October 25th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, I found that speech to be quite interesting. I am a very strong advocate for supply management. I see the value of the dairy industry just as I see the value of wheat farmers and the Canadian Wheat Board.

Many of the arguments the government is using today to get rid of the Wheat Board can and in all likelihood at some point in time will be used by a Conservative regime, whether it is this one or another in the future, to get rid of supply management. I believe that there is great value for both. When the member says we should stop treating farmers as second-class citizens, my challenge to the member and the government is to do just that: stop treating our prairie grain farmers as second-class citizens.

If the government believes that it is on the right side of this debate, why does it not listen to over 20,000 prairie grain farmers who want the government to respect the role the Canadian Wheat Board plays today? Does he not believe that those farmers have a right to have their opinions respected? Does he not see the benefit of allowing them to have a plebiscite?

[Canadian Wheat Board, October 25th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, I would ask the Prime Minister to show some respect for our prairie farmers. The Prime Minister said no to the plebiscite. The Prime Minister closed debate on the Wheat Board.

My question to the Prime Minister is this: will the Prime Minister agree to conduct committee meetings related to this bill to kill the Wheat Board in the Prairies so that the prairie producers can share their concerns directly?

The government talks about experts; let us bring the committee to the Prairies, where the experts and grain farmers can contribute to this debate. If he has nothing to fear, why does he not do it?

[Business of Supply, October 25th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, it takes a great deal of courage for a member of the Conservative Party to stand up and ask why that party is not listening to farmers. There are prairie grain wheat farmers who have voted in a plebiscite to say that they want to retain the Canadian Wheat Board and yet the government wants to get rid of it. I ask the member who posed the question, why are he and his government not listening to farmers?

Although evidence is important, it is not something the government gives an ounce of credibility to. There was an interesting report entitled, “Performance Evaluation of the Canadian Wheat Board” which came out in 1996. The authors were three professors from three major universities, the University of Manitoba, the University of Saskatchewan and the University of Alberta.

The report states:

The single-desk selling system in Canada is viewed as something that facilitates transactions and is regarded by Brazilian buyers as a key to the confidence and reliability of purchasing wheat from Canada.

There are so many wonderful reasons to keep the Canadian Wheat Board. It brings so much value to our prairie farmers. Would the member not agree that is the case?

[Business of Supply, October 25th, 2011]

Madam Speaker, I am interested in the question posed by the Conservative member. I think the operative words there are “work with”.

The difference between the views of the Conservatives and the Liberals on this issue is that the Liberals respect the idea of holding a plebiscite whereas the Conservatives do not.

If the Conservatives believed that the prairie wheat farmers would support what they are proposing in this bill I suspect they would have held a plebiscite. However, the government knows that the prairie wheat producers do not support what it is doing. That is the reason it will not hold a plebiscite. It realizes it would lose the vote.

Having said that, the evidence is clear that the bill is detrimental and would prove devastating for the prairie farmers as well as for many rural communities.

The following is a quote from The Economist:

Smaller producers, faced with mounting marketing costs, will inevitably have to sell their farms to bigger rivals or agribusiness companies. Eventually, this should lead to consolidation and fewer, bigger farms—making Canada a more competitive wheat producer, but devastating small prairie towns, whose economies depend on individual farmers with disposable income.

I ask the member to provide a comment on that.

[Marketing Freedom for Grain Farmers Act, October 24th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, Conservative MP after Conservative MP talks about the reduction in average acres and they try to blame the Canadian Wheat Board. As in many other things, they have absolutely no evidence, not a shred, to demonstrate that is the case. If anything, the CWB, and of course our good farmers, but the brand of CWB is one of the reasons that we sell the amount of wheat that we do, that we have the market we currently have.

I take exception to member after member quoting what individual farmers are saying. I want to refer to the broader picture. There were over 20,000 prairie grain producers and farmers who participated in the plebiscite. The government goes out of its way to discredit the plebiscite. Why does the government not have the political courage to have a plebiscite, if it is so critical of the one the CWB held? After all, there is an obligation in law to do so. Why does the member not support farmers having a legitimate plebiscite that they would actually abide by? We on this side would abide by the results. Why will the government not do the same?

[Marketing Freedom for Grain Farmers Act, October 24th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, the government is going out of its way to claim that this bill is all about freedom.

My colleague made reference to how critical the supply management system is, much in the same way as the Canadian Wheat Board is. It protects industries in many different ways. It ensures a fair market price. It protects tens of thousands of jobs across the country.

This bill is not about freedom. This is about the impact the bill will have on the prairie farmer. Ultimately it is going to destroy family farms on the Prairies. It is going to hurt communities that rely on those small farms.

Does the member believe that this bill has anything to do with freedom as Conservative member after Conservative member claims?

[Petitions, October 24th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, I present a petition with regard to the Canadian Wheat Board.

The livelihoods of western Canadian farmers are at risk should they lose the clout of the Canadian Wheat board to set the best price for their grain, negotiate fair treatment from the railways, lower transportation costs, and lose the many other services it provides.

The petitioners demand that the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food honour their wishes as expressed democratically through a plebiscite. These wonderful prairie individuals want the government to listen to what the prairie farmers actually want.