As a member of the Official Opposition, my roll is to evaluate legislation proposed by the current government and offer solutions and suggestions or point out the flaws and problems so that the law is effective and benefits society.

When Bill C-4 (the new Canadian Wheat Board Act) was introduced in the House of Commons, I performed my roll as opposition by first of all pointing out all of the problems with the legislation and secondly proposing amendments to the bill that would have made it more effective. The problem is the government did not listen to any suggestions, opposed all our amendments and pushed Bill C-4 through in June.

When bad legislation becomes law, such as the case of Bill C-4, the problems do not begin to show themselves until the law is put into practice. Five months after Bill C-4 was adopted, we now see the results of some bad legislation.

The Canadian Wheat Board Elections, which were part of C-4, are a complete disgrace to democracy. My office has been flooded with calls from farmers who are disgusted with how this election is being run. Here are some examples of what I have been hearing:

• There are an estimated 90,000 commercial grain growers in Western Canada; however, there were 155,000 names on the CWB original voter list.
• Of those 155,000 names, some were from Australia, Hong Kong, Thailand and Alaska. They all received ballots to vote.
• Ballots were sent to deceased farmers.
• Farmers not on the voter list have had to sign an affidavit claiming they are a producer of one of the six major grains. The farmer then receives his ballot in the mail, he votes and then gets a letter back saying his vote has been discarded because he did not meet the election criteria.
• Farmers wives have been excluded from voting despite being named in a permit book as a joint owner of the farm land.

While those are a few of the stories I have been hearing, it raises a number of questions about how democratic this election is.

The fact that each ballot has a number on it proves this is not a secret ballot because that number is a reference to who is voting. Farmers have been very skeptical about this numbering system. In one instance, a producer received a ballot but was concerned about the identification number. The producer cut off the number and sent the ballot in to be counted. That same producer has since received a call from KPMG, the company overseeing the election process, that said the ballot was tampered with and as a result may not be counted. My question is, how did KMPG know whose ballot it was when the identification number was cut off?

This voting procedure is a disgrace to democracy. If our government saw a different country implementing a voting procedure whereby it could be determined who a person voted for, there would be outrage. But when it happens in our own country, our government sees no problem in allowing it to happen.

The response by farmers proves there is a definite lack of trust about this whole CWB election process. That lack of trust did not develop overnight, it stems from years of the CWB being unaccountable to producers. The government won’t let the Auditor General audit the Wheat Board’s books. The government won’t let farmers use the Access to Information Act to get information they need about how the Wheat Board operates. Now the government seems to think this election is exempt from the Elections Act by appointing a consulting firm to oversee the procedure instead of using the Chief Electoral Officer.

In the end it comes down to the fact that Bill C-4 is bad legislation. Government bureaucrats who knew little about farming developed it. The government ignored suggestions by its own producer panel and decided to implement the law anyway. We are now seeing the results of this bad legislation and the problems with the CWB will continue to exist until the act is changed.

If you have any comments about this column or any other issue, please feel free to call my constituency office at 1-800-667-6606.