Bill C-18 committee  As you know, the work of the department has been done very closely with Transport Canada. Even in our working group, as you know, Transport Canada participated in that work. The rail review itself, as you know, has four elements, including a facilitator—now Mr. Dinning—and establishing service-level templates, and looking at the dispute settlement resolution mechanism.

Bill C-18 committee  Mr. Chair, I'll be straightforward. There have been surveys run by the Wheat Board itself, and I think they were referred to earlier by members, which included this third option called dual marketing. Those surveys have been run for some years. I can give you some of the details on the results of those surveys, if you like.

Bill C-18 committee  Because the results, of course, show that most farmers favour the dual marketing—

Bill C-18 committee  What I think I can speak to is the nature of director liability set out in the act itself. I was going to ask Mr. Meredith to speak to that.

Bill C-18 committee  Again, the surveys that were referred to earlier--

Bill C-18 committee  Is that a question?

Bill C-18 committee  I think I would simply say, again, that the intent of the act and the intent of the transition period is to give a full opportunity to the Wheat Board to reinvent itself. The plans will be developed by the directors themselves in consultation with farmers, and there are various business models that are open to them in that case.

Bill C-18 committee  Government guarantees.

Bill C-18 committee  In addition, as the legislation indicates, the government is willing to look at transition costs as the new entity moves forward, in terms of supporting where it might head as a farmer co-operative or a private entity. So again, transition costs will be considered. Until the time that we can sit down with the governance of the new entity and work through the details of these transitions costs, I can't be more specific than that.

Bill C-18 committee  We haven't done it for precisely the reason you've been asking about; that is to say, we want the Wheat Board itself to advance its business plan, not the government. Nor do we want the minister to design that plan.

Bill C-18 committee  Again, I'm from a beef farming background in Ontario. What I certainly understand in this long-standing debate, which I have observed for many years, is as we discussed earlier when the minister was here: that there has always been this middle option called dual marketing—

Bill C-18 committee  As I just explained, the purpose of the bill is not to see to it that the minister approve the business plan of a new Canadian Wheat Board. In other words, the idea is simply to review the business plan, in order to ensure that the money paid by Canadian taxpayers in connection with the old organization is well spent.

Bill C-18 committee  Perhaps I'll refer again to the working group report that we discussed last evening. The expectation is that this dual marketing system for farmers, which will give an opportunity to opt for pooling or for spot market prices, will lead to growth. What we have seen with the non-Wheat Board grains, such as canola and lentils, over the last 10 years, has been significant growth, while the varieties and the yield in wheat and durum growth have been small relative to those other grains.

Bill C-18 committee  The moneys in the contingency fund, which is being provided for through the operating activities of the Wheat Board, are not considered to be dollars derived from the farmers' pool. This is the way the accounting procedures are developed at the Wheat Board itself. These moneys are derived not from the farmers' pool itself, but rather from the operating activities of the existing entity.

Bill C-18 committee  It's not the case, in the sense that the contingency fund is derived from the operating activities of the board, not from the pool itself. The use of the dollars would be for the new entity.