Mr. Speaker, this is the first opportunity I have had to rise in the House to speak. I cannot think of a better subject to do it on. It is a subject that I have grown up with all my life and heard about all my life.
Before I get into my speech, I would like to thank the people who helped put me here, the people who worked on my campaign and the people who had enough courage to vote for me. I hope I do not let them down.
It is with a feeling of responsibility that I rise today to address the amendment to the wheat board act, Bill C-4, and in particular Motion No. 1.
This wheat board act historically has been a subject of much discussion in the constituency I represent, the constituency of Lethbridge, and obviously right across the prairies. Quite frankly, it has been a very divisive subject. It has pit rural neighbour against rural neighbour and region against region. It has caused a lot of hardship and a lot of hard feelings among the farm families on the prairies, probably more than any other subject.
There are grain farmers on the prairies who want to see the Canadian Wheat Board completely dismantled. They are fed up with the lack of accountability to the producers. That is what this is all about. It is accountability to the producers, not accountability to the government, and the lack of options that these producers have to market their products.
We seem to be at an impasse here. The government has taken this bill, it has worked with it and brought it back and it is still not acceptable. Either the government continues to ignore the demands of producers, while many grain farmers are inappropriately fined and jailed, or it takes this sorry excuse of a bill back to the drawing board, makes some serious amendments and starts listening to the full scope of recommendations by producers and even its own Western Grain Marketing Panel.
When this government had the opportunity, why did it not change this tired legislation? Why did it choose not to? Why instead did it bring forward a half baked proposal that does not address the critical problems that are facing beleaguered grain farmers today?
If producers did not support the bill when it was Bill C-72 during the last Parliament, then they will not support this one. This government cannot change things just by slapping another number on it.
Sadly enough, perhaps this piece of recycled legislation is the best the Liberals can come up with. Considering that the Canadian Wheat Board controls $5 billion in sales, has approximately 110 producers and that farm group after farm group testified at the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food that this is a seriously flawed piece of legislation—I have letters from producer groups in western Canada explaining the problems they see with the legislation and begging this government to make changes—I guess I naively thought that the government would come up with something better, make a more serious effort on it.
In Bill C-4 the government has failed to prove to producers that it is in the grain marketing business. The time is long overdue for grain marketing to be treated with common sense using sound marketing principles in order to bring maximum returns to the producers for their products. That is what this bill should address, maximum returns for the producer. A previous prime minister even went on record in years past to say “why should we sell this grain?”
Monopolies in other industries are rarely tolerated, so why are grain producers exceptions to the rule?
Thousands of grain farmers have spoken and Bill C-4 shows that the government is not listening, which perhaps may help to explain why it is rushed through committee.
The government has not shown producers that it will be responsible to them through a completely producer elected board, insisting instead on appointing the key members of that board. The time has come for government to relinquish its monopoly on grain marketing.
A fully effective board of directors is fully elected board of directors if the voice of farmers is truly to be heard.
Subsequently, if the aforementioned amendment were adopted, section 3.02(4) would be deleted since it would not be necessary to specify equal powers between elected and non-elected directors.
The government has insinuated all the way through the process, and I heard the minister responsible say this, that the expertise to run this board does not exist among the producers. They have to have five appointed members because it is such a large business. I suggest to the government that it look at some of the operations these producers have if it wants to see efficiency in operations. It could learn something and could maybe incorporate some of those practices into the bill.
Just imagine if producers ran their operations like the government does. We do not hear of too many farmers who are running up huge deficits year after year, all the while adding to a huge debtload. If only governments were held to the same degree of accountability as producers.
The government has chosen to cherry pick through the recommendations of the Western Grain Marketing Panel, focusing on the recommendations that fit its agenda and ignoring the recommendations that fit the needs of producers. What happened to all the recommendations that producers and the panel supported? Why were the requests for marketing offices producers are asking for ignored? Why is the government so afraid to put some options on the table for producers? Why did the government not resolve the contentious and divisive issue when it had the chance? Where is the transparency that producers are demanding? The auditor general is still denied access to the wheat board operations. This in itself is ringing alarm bells with producer groups across the country.
The Canadian Wheat Board does not have to answer to the Access to Information Act. How can the directors act freely if they are bound by this secrecy? Why will the Liberal government not come clean?
What has the government done in Bill C-4 to address the unbelievable problems in the grain transportation system in this country? Absolutely nothing. This government never even bothered to tackle the Canadian Wheat Board's role in grain transportation anywhere in Bill C-4.
Problems and inefficiencies cost grain producers dearly every crop year, year after year. The nightmare we experienced last year must not become a legacy to the efficiency or the lack thereof in our transportation system.
Why is it always the products of hardworking Canadian grain farmers that sit on rail sidings? Why are the grain cars put on sidings while other products continue to port? Could it be because neither the rail company nor the wheat board is penalized for late delivery? Could it be because the penalty goes directly to the producer, becoming just another transportation tax for producers to pay?
In closing, why when the Liberal government had the chance did it not address these problems? Why when the Liberal government had the chance, and took the time and went to the considerable effort of setting up a panel to make recommendations in producing the bill, did it not put to rest the suspicions of producers in the divisive aspect of the Canadian Wheat Board?
The rural families of Canada and the prairies, families on both sides of this issue, deserve far more.
