Agriculture committee  I'm not going to lay all the blame on the Canadian Wheat Board, but I definitely think they're a significant influence on the investment climate in western Canada. A lot of industries that would like to set up there do not want to be held captive to a single-desk seller to access

Agriculture committee  Our intent was never to make it a character assassination. Everybody knows where the Western Barley Growers stands when it comes to marketing choice. As for the last financial report put out by the Canadian Wheat Board, the facts we're putting on the table are available in any

Agriculture committee  I appreciate the question. The first thing I'd like to make a comment on is your comparison of the supply management and the Canadian Wheat Board being the same. There's a distinct difference between the Canadian Wheat Board and the SM-5. With the SM-5 you control production and

Agriculture committee  Let's be clear: even though the Canadian Wheat Board is a central desk marketing agency with monopoly powers, it's only within Canada. They do not have a monopoly on the price of wheat in the world. The price of wheat in the world is set by a competitive bidding process in Minnea

Agriculture committee  The Western Barley Growers Association has written a letter to the minister asking him to push for an audit of the Canadian Wheat Board. We do not mean an audit of their operations; we mean an audit of their investment desk and sales desk. We have to look at what they're doing, b

Agriculture committee  The contingency fund is a contentious issue for all western Canadian producers. No, they shouldn't be transferring money back and forth between pool accounts and the contingency fund. It was our understanding that when the contingency fund was set up eight years ago, there would

Agriculture committee  I can understand where you're coming from, but I have a real difficulty with creating false barriers to support agriculture, because eventually what happens with government support of any farming operation is that this money becomes capitalized into the operation and at some poin

Agriculture committee  I've been doing that for my whole farming career. I compete against the American farmer. In my operation it has forced me, or made me, adapt my operation to grow other crops and to become more efficient in my production in order to be able to compete. I have no problem in saying

Agriculture committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm Brian Otto, president of the Western Barley Growers Association, and with me is another director, Mr. Rick Strankman. My presentation is going to be a little closer to the farm. We represent western barley producers in western Canada, so I'm going t