Mr. Speaker, I have been waiting for 35 years to deliver this speech. That is a long time.
I am a wheat farmer, I must confess. I farmed for over 30 years in Alberta. I stand to speak in favour of the marketing freedom for grain farmers act.
Anyone listening to this debate might wonder why we would have to do that. Do not all farmers have the right to market what they produce? That is partially correct, but only if a farmer lives east of the Manitoba-Ontario border or west of Creston, B.C. All farmers living in between, which is the wheat belt area of this country, have been under the control of a monopoly seller of wheat and barley for human consumption. That is the other thing a lot of people do not understand. It is durum wheat for pasta, bread wheats and barley for malt barley.
We would argue that the producers of those crops should have the same right to the freedom to market, to the same freedom of choice, as farmers who live in Ontario, Prince Edward Island, west of Creston B.C., and in fact all around the world. That is what this whole debate is about. Some members understand that because they have heard that term enough times in the House. Those producers should have the same freedom of choice.
This is the most draconian and outdated marketing system of any country in the world. No other industry would accept this situation. No other industry would have come to Canada. Let us picture the big three automakers coming to Canada to build cars if we had set up a monopoly that would tell the industry what colour of car it could build and what price it would get, and that the industry would get paid 18 months after the monopoly chose to sell that car. We would not have an auto industry, nor would we have a communications industry, if they were harnessed with the same binding regulations that those of us who produce grain in western Canada have.
A new, voluntary Canadian wheat board will be set up once this legislation is passed. It will be an option. Just as I, as a producer of wheat in western Canada, should never have been forced to sell to a monopoly, so have we chosen not to force those who would choose to use a pooling mechanism to not be able to have a pooling option. The Minister of Agriculture has given this a great deal of thought, and he has put in place an option that will provide a pooling mechanism for those who are more comfortable with that approach. We are providing a transition period for this new board to develop a strategy, a five-year period to set this up. We hope that those people who enjoy the aspects of pooling will use this option. I as a wheat producer will not be forced to use it, as I have been through my 30-some years of growing wheat.
Many farmers in western Canada have moved away from this monopoly. As the Minister of Agriculture said in answer to a question the other day, farmers voted with their air seeders. A lot of people in this room do not understand what an air seeder is. It is a seeding mechanism for farms all across the world. Farmers chose not to grow wheat because they could not hedge their price. They knew what their costs were, but they had no way of knowing, through a monopoly, what their price was going to be.
I myself moved away from growing wheat. I only grow it now as a rotation for the health of my soil, for disease control on my farm. Otherwise I grow peas, lentils, chickpeas and canola, because I can market them in the middle of the night anywhere in the world when I see a price that I like.
I have a friend in Australia who grows wheat. When the prices went high in the spring of 2008, the highest we have ever seen, he was able to lock in a price for two years of production because there were companies out there that were willing to do that. He had his sale prices locked in for two years.
I do not know tomorrow what I would get for the wheat that I produce this year. However, I do know that for the wheat harvested on my farm barely two weeks ago, the return to me will not come until January 2013. What other business would accept that as a payment model? I have no idea what the price is going to be, but I know my costs. Why would I grow wheat?
A report came out today stating that our population is going to be 15 billion people in 2100. Who is going to feed those people? It would not be a country held back on production because the farmers could not afford to grow wheat. They would grow other crops--peas, lentils, chickpeas--but they would stop growing wheat if they were held under this monopoly, and we have seen it happen. Wheat acreage has fallen in this country dramatically. We have given up the advantage of some of the new varieties of wheat that could be grown because the Wheat Board is in such an archaic state of mind that we could not develop the new varieties of wheat that would actually help feed the world.
We have seen the yields of corn in the United States triple because of research. We have seen canola varieties producing double of what they were. Where is wheat? It is maybe 10% or 20% more. We have great opportunity for farmers in western Canada to realize the benefits available to them if we can get out from underneath this archaic system.
As I said, cash flow matters to farmers. They are very innovative, they understand their business costs and they need to know how to cover those costs. When they grow another crop that they can market themselves, they can pick a price and sell it. However, under the monopoly powers of the Wheat Board, they do not even know if the crop would actually be moved off their farm in a year.
It is an archaic system. The Wheat Board should never be allowed to decide whether I want to sell my crop, but they have been able to do that. As I say, it is a very archaic system.
I have met grain buyers in other countries. For example, when I was in Cairo, Egypt, food importer brokers asked me why I would not sell them my wheat. I said that they had to deal with the Canadian Wheat Board. They said they had tried, but it would not answer their phone calls.
We have no access to market. If I go back to peas and lentils, I choose whom I want to sell it to and I choose the price I want. I am a price taker, there is no doubt about it, but I can also hedge that price. I can sell it into the future. There are futures markets. There are a whole lot of simple arguments that are being neglected.
I will quote a good friend of mine from southwestern Saskatchewan, Cherilyn Jolly-Nagel. I know her and her folks very well. She is a past president of the Western Canadian Wheat Growers. I quote:
I'm already planning to increase my durum acres next year. It's just the kind of investment that will help boost our economy, boost our profits and help boost the provincial economy.
She is speaking about the first new pasta plant in western Canada, which is being built just outside of Regina, and about the kinds of benefits we will see grow.
There should have been a malt plant in central Alberta. I see the barley going past my house down to Great Falls, Montana. Why is that? It is because the board stopped it from being built in Canada.
We need the freedom. We need the choice. It is that simple.