Hon. Grant Mitchell:

Honourable senators, when I hear the leader of the Conservatives in the Senate say that the Canadian Wheat Board will not die, I am reminded of the Monty Python skit where the client brings back the dead parrot and says, "This parrot is dead," and the clerk keeps saying, "That parrot is not dead. That parrot is not dead." That is exactly what the leader over there sounds like. "The Canadian Wheat Board is not going to die. The Canadian Wheat Board is not going to die."

The Canadian Wheat Board is going to be dead, dead, dead, once the government institutes its policy. We are not going to lose just the Canadian Wheat Board; we are also going to lose all kinds of transportation advantages for farmers.

Could the leader please tell us what steps — if they have thought this far ahead — the government has taken to protect shortline railroads and special sidings for farmers to deliver their grain, because those shortline railroads and sidings have been sustained by Canadian Wheat Board grain shipments, and nothing else?

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