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[English]
Mr. Garry Breitkreuz (Yorkton--Melville, Canadian Alliance): Mr. Speaker, in yesterday's report by the auditor general on the Canadian Wheat Board, Ms. Fraser stated that she could not look into the mandate of the wheat board or its monopolistic single desk selling system.
These glaring omissions in this audit are the things that farmers want to know about. The Canadian Wheat Board is a monopoly with no transparent operations, so in light of this an audit needs to be done to find out whether the board is maximizing the return to farmers.
The questions the auditor general should have answered are: Do farmers get a good deal in comparison to producers in competing countries? Are taxpayers being well served by the board's handling of its own operations? Would farmers benefit more if they could bypass the board and add value to their product by processing grain and marketing it independently? Would organic producers of quality wheat and barley benefit if they could market their own product?
Finally, farmers want to know how they benefit in a monopolistic situation when they are forced to buy expensive television advertising during the Winter Olympics through the Canadian Wheat Board. All of these subjects must be looked at immediately.