As they fought Liberal plans for Canadian Wheat Board changes last week, Reform party members of Parliament found themselves under attack for some of their more harsh comments about the board.
“It’s been a long time since I have heard that kind of extremism in the House of Commons,” veteran Saskatchewan New Democratic Party MP Lorne Nystrom said during debate.
Nystrom, a 26-year veteran of the Commons who was defeated by Reform in his Yorkton riding in 1993 and returned to Parliament last year in a Regina seat, singled out a number of Reform MPs for what he said were extremist statements during debate:
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- Southern Saskatchewan Reformer Lee Morrison compared the wheat board to an institution of the Soviet Union.
- Mike Scott, from the British Columbia riding of Skeena, said the wheat board acts like a police state.
- Various MPs have extolled the virtues of farmers who have been fined or jailed for breaking the customs law or the Canadian Wheat Board Act. Nystrom said they were a law-and-order party supporting law-breakers.
“The extremism in that party ought to be noted by ordinary people in this country,” said the New Democrat.
Last week, northwest British Columbia Reform MP Dick Harris added to the charges made in the Commons when he alleged that the wheat board is corrupt.
He told the Commons Feb. 12 that an end to the wheat board monopoly would free farmers.
“It would free farmers from the dictatorship of the Canadian Wheat Board,” he said. “It would free farmers from the corruptness of the Canadian Wheat Board … .”
When critics challenged the word corrupt, Harris did not offer proof. Instead, he referred to allegations.
“They ask what corruptness,” he said. “There has been allegation after allegation by Canadian farmers who have sought to take this issue to court only to find that the Canadian Wheat Board and this Liberal government do everything they can to keep these issues out of court.”
Meanwhile, Nystrom’s attacks on the Reform party drew a curious response from at least one Reformer.
An unnamed MP sent a picture to Nystrom of a bird of prey chewing the head off another bird. “How Reformers deal with the NDP,” said the caption.
Nystrom complained in the Commons and speaker Gilbert Parent gave the Reformers a tongue-lashing for peddling trash. The picture had been sent via one of the House of Commons pages who act as delivery people for MPs.
“Our pages should never, never be used to carry this type of trash,” Parent lectured. “I would hope this would not occur again.”
