moved:
That, in the opinion of this House, all Canadians are to be treated equally and fairly, and since Prairie wheat and barley producers are discriminated against solely because of their location and occupation, this House call on the government to take immediate action to end this discrimination and give Prairie farmers the same marketing choices that are available in the rest of Canada.
Madam Speaker, we will be splitting our time.
In the course of the business of the House, hon. members are required to debate and take positions on a great variety of issues. While all of them are important in their own right, some of them carry much more significance reflecting the kind of nation that Canada is.
I use the term “reflecting Canada” rather than “defining Canada” because I believe that what defines a free society is not necessarily established by law. Those things are part of our nature, our history and our values. They cannot be legislated into being and they cannot be debated into existence. They first must exist in our hearts, then in society and then, finally, in the laws of our nation.
One of this country's most positive attributes is its sense of fairness; that we intrinsically believe that all people should be treated with respect, with justice and with dignity. I say as Canadians we believe that sometimes almost to a fault.
There is no part of this nation where Canadians believe that others are not entitled to the same rights, the same opportunities, the same dreams and the same freedoms. We insist on fairness for all.
However, while the House cannot create such attributes, it can destroy them. The laws that are passed in this place either protect our inherent rights and freedoms and those of others or they erode them. They either strengthen them or diminish them. While some legislation has little impact on these things, other policies go to the heart of what we believe, and still others violate these norms. One of the latter is the legislation which results in our courts sending farmers in one part of the country to jail for activities which are considered normal commercial practices in other parts of the country. I am referring to the monopoly of the Canadian Wheat Board.
Quite frankly, I know of no other single policy in our nation today that does more violence to the fundamental rights and freedoms of Canadians than that one. It singles out a particular group of people, the grain farmers, in a particular region, the Prairies, and strips those involved of commercial opportunities that no other Canadian businessperson would dream of being deprived of.
Having done so, it then attempts to convince other Canadians that the stripping of such rights is perfectly acceptable and can be rightfully imposed on others any time one can demonstrate some claim to public opinion or academic expertise. In doing so, these claims and these policies erode the very foundation of democracy from which they purport to drive their authority.
I must admit that for many years I, like most Canadians, did not appreciate the impact this law was having on real people in some parts of our country. I was born and raised in Ontario. Although my grandparents were mixed farmers in Ontario and although my father did business in western Canada, I was unfamiliar with the Canadian Wheat Board, at least its origins, its purpose and the impact it has.
All that changed during my term as a Reform member of Parliament and, more specifically, my years as president of the National Citizens Coalition. During that time I travelled around the Prairies and met hundreds of smart, entrepreneurial, hardworking farm families who were struggling to save, to expand and to diversify their industry. In the face of often difficult markets, they were finding lucrative markets outside our borders, yet prevented by law from exploiting those opportunities by an archaic, collectivist federal monopoly. Some of them, out of desperation and determination, took their grain across the border. They simply wanted to be treated like every other Canadian citizen expects and deserves to be treated.
For those who are not familiar with the monopoly of the Wheat Board, allow me to explain what it means.
Everywhere in the country except the prairie region Canadian grain farmers are encouraged to sell what they grow. The prairie farmers who grow wheat and barley and want to export it or sell it for human consumption must let the Canadian Wheat Board sell it. Unless they go through a bureaucratic and expensive process to buy back their own wheat, prairie farmers are not allowed to sell their own grain.
In spite of the fact that the Canadian Wheat Board Act is a federal law which technically applies to all of Canada, the prairie region is singled out for different treatment. While farmers in Quebec, Ontario, the Atlantic provinces and most of British Columbia can freely market their grain, prairie farmers cannot. The result of this are the following inequities.
If people farm in Ontario, they can sell their wheat through the Ontario Wheat Board or on the open market. However if people farm on the Prairies they can go to jail if they try to sell their wheat on the open market.
If people farm in Nova Scotia, they can sell their wheat directly to a mill. However if people farm on the Prairies they can go to jail if they try to sell their wheat to a mill.
If people farm in Quebec, they can obtain export licences at no cost, but if people farm on the Prairies, the cost of export licences takes the profit out of any sale beyond the Wheat Board.
If people farm anywhere else in the prairie region export licences are routinely granted, but if people farm on the Prairies export licences are routinely denied.
The arguments for retaining this monopoly are varied and complex, but at the end of the day they all have one thing in common. They are just an excuse for denying basic freedoms.
For example, the Liberal government claims that the CWB can obtain a better price for farmers' wheat because of its monopoly position. Yet the fact is the CWB has no monopoly in the context of the world market.
Canada grows only 5% of the world's wheat and holds only 18% of the world wheat export market. This means that for every CWB agent out there peddling a bushel of wheat the competitors are lined up with four times as much to sell. That is some monopoly.
On the basis of data the Wheat Board keeps secret, the Liberal government also claims that it has done studies which prove the CWB obtains better prices for farmers. However it never considered all the costs.
Costs it does not factor into the study are such things as the lost opportunity costs for farmers who want to add value; the costs of failing to develop niche markets; the costs of inefficiencies in a bureaucratic grain handling and transportation system; the costs of endless commissions, studies, panels and hearings on this issue; or, finally, the exorbitant costs paid by many farmers to fight for the basic economic right to sell their own property.
If the Wheat Board were really to have this superior performance in wheat markets it would not be afraid to show all of that data to western farmers, which it has never done.
The next argument the government puts forward is the claim that if farmers had to compete against each other for markets it would drive the price of wheat down. This is simply silly. What other business people are being told by the federal government that the more buyers they have for their products the more the price drops?
Multiple buyers push the price up as grain buyers compete with one another to secure supply for their sales commitments. If farmers were to have a choice about who they sold their products to, they would always choose the one offering the higher price. Those would be our farmers, perhaps not the Liberals' farmers. This would force grain buyers to compete against each other or see the business go elsewhere.
Finally, we are told farmers want the monopoly. This is an interesting argument. What is the evidence of this? Was there a vote in 1943 when the monopoly was first established? No. Did farmers vote when the government decided to bring in this wartime monopoly to keep wheat prices low? No. Was there a vote in 1949 when it was again decided to keep the monopoly around even though the war was over? No.
Was there a vote when the government decided to give wheat to Great Britain at half its commercial value in the 1950s? No. Was there a vote when government never repaid farmers for these losses? No. Was there a vote in the mid-1950s when the government decided to renew the CWB monopoly again? No. Was there a vote five years later when it happened yet again? No.
Was there ever a vote? Yes, there was a vote. The current Wheat Board minister had a vote in 1997. He gave prairie farmers two options. Would farmers like to leave the monopoly exactly as it is or should he destroy the Canadian Wheat Board for everyone?
There was no option of a dual market. There was no mention of a voluntary system. There was no chance for individual choice. There was no opportunity to have a system like Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia or the west slopes of British Columbia. There was only the rigged plebiscite that frustrated farmers and solved nothing. It was followed by this farcical system of elections that the government likes to point to where it still has effective control of the Wheat Board. It controls one-third of the board which is directly controlled by the minister. These elections, frankly, would not pass a UN monitoring system.
Perhaps someone should tell the government that there are many farmers who are not interested in electing a director to a corporation they do not want to do business with. We believe that people should be treated equally and fairly. If farmers want to market through the Wheat Board, let them do so.
Voluntary cooperatives are a cherished part of this nation's history and frankly, with competition the Canadian Wheat Board would do a lot better job of serving the farmer. However for farmers who want to take their business somewhere else, they should have the freedom to do so. Such freedoms are the basic right of all Canadians and are the responsibility of the House to protect. Western Canada and prairie farmers should have the same rights as any other Canadian when it comes to these freedoms.
