Marketing Freedom for Grain Farmers Act

An Act to reorganize the Canadian Wheat Board and to make consequential and related amendments to certain Acts

This bill was last introduced in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session, which ended in September 2013.

Sponsor

Gerry Ritz  Conservative

Status

This bill has received Royal Assent and is now law.

Summary

This is from the published bill. The Library of Parliament often publishes better independent summaries.

Part 1 of this enactment amends the Canadian Wheat Board Act to change the governance structure of the Canadian Wheat Board and to make other changes in preparation for the implementation of Parts 2 and 3. Part 2 replaces the Canadian Wheat Board Act with a new Act that continues the Canadian Wheat Board and charges it with the marketing of grain through voluntary pooling. Part 3 provides for the possible continuation of the Board under other federal legislation, while Part 4 provides for its winding up if no such continuation occurs. Finally, Part 5 provides for the repeal of the new Act enacted by Part 2.

Elsewhere

All sorts of information on this bill is available at LEGISinfo, an excellent resource from the Library of Parliament. You can also read the full text of the bill.

Votes

Nov. 28, 2011 Passed That the Bill be now read a third time and do pass.
Nov. 28, 2011 Failed That the motion be amended by deleting all the words after the word "That" and substituting the following: “this House decline to give third reading to Bill C-18, An Act to reorganize the Canadian Wheat Board and to make consequential and related amendments to certain Acts, because members of the Committee were unable to hear testimony from the primary producers affected by and concerned with the future commercialization of the Canadian Wheat Board”.
Nov. 23, 2011 Passed That Bill C-18, An Act to reorganize the Canadian Wheat Board and to make consequential and related amendments to certain Acts, as amended, be concurred in at report stage.
Nov. 23, 2011 Failed That Bill C-18 be amended by deleting Clause 55.
Nov. 23, 2011 Failed That Bill C-18 be amended by deleting Clause 46.
Nov. 23, 2011 Failed That Bill C-18 be amended by deleting Clause 45.
Nov. 23, 2011 Failed That Bill C-18, in Clause 14, be amended by replacing lines 38 to 42 on page 7 with the following: “(2) All the directors are elected by the producers in accordance with the regulations. The directors must designate, also in accordance with those regulations, a president from among themselves.”
Nov. 23, 2011 Failed That Bill C-18, in Clause 14, be amended by replacing line 36 on page 7 with the following: “9. (1) The board consists of fifteen directors,”
Nov. 23, 2011 Failed That Bill C-18 be amended by deleting Clause 12.
Nov. 23, 2011 Failed That Bill C-18 be amended by deleting Clause 9.
Nov. 23, 2011 Failed That Bill C-18 be amended by deleting Clause 7.
Nov. 23, 2011 Failed That Bill C-18 be amended by deleting Clause 6.
Nov. 23, 2011 Failed That Bill C-18 be amended by deleting Clause 3.
Nov. 23, 2011 Failed That Bill C-18 be amended by deleting Clause 2.
Nov. 23, 2011 Passed That, in relation to Bill C-18, An Act to reorganize the Canadian Wheat Board and to make consequential and related amendments to certain Acts, not more than one further sitting day shall be allotted to the consideration at report stage of the Bill and one sitting day shall be allotted to the consideration at third reading stage of the said Bill; and That, 15 minutes before the expiry of the time provided for Government Orders on the day allotted to the consideration at report stage and on the day allotted to the consideration at third reading stage of the said Bill, any proceedings before the House shall be interrupted, if required for the purpose of this Order, and in turn every question necessary for the disposal of the stage of the Bill then under consideration shall be put forthwith and successively without further debate or amendment.
Oct. 24, 2011 Passed That the Bill be now read a second time and referred to a legislative committee.
Oct. 24, 2011 Failed That the motion be amended by deleting all the words after the word “That” and substituting the following: “this House decline to give second reading to Bill C-18, An Act to reorganize the Canadian Wheat Board and to make consequential and related amendments to certain Acts, because it: ( a) fails to respect the will of the majority of prairie farmers who have expressed a desire to maintain the current composition and structure of the Canadian Wheat Board; (b) ignores the fact that the Canadian Wheat Board is funded, controlled, and directed by Canadian farmers and removes their autonomy to maximize prices and minimize risks in the western wheat and barley market; and (c) makes sweeping decisions on behalf of prairie farmers by eliminating the single-desk system that has provided prairie farmers strength and stability for nearly 70 years”.
Oct. 24, 2011 Failed That the amendment be amended by adding after the words “70 years” the following: “, including specifically the elimination of the Canadian Wheat Board’s role in managing transportation logistics and thereby leaving farmers without an effective voice with respect to rail service levels and freight rates; and ( d) breaches section 47.1 of the Canadian Wheat Board Act”.
Oct. 20, 2011 Passed That, in relation to Bill C-18, An Act to reorganize the Canadian Wheat Board and to make consequential and related amendments to certain Acts, not more than two further sitting days shall be allotted to the consideration at second reading stage of the Bill; and That, 15 minutes before the expiry of the time provided for Government Orders on the second day allotted to the consideration at second reading stage of the said Bill, any proceedings before the House shall be interrupted, if required for the purpose of this Order, and, in turn, every question necessary for the disposal of the said stage of the Bill shall be put forthwith and successively, without further debate or amendment.

Marketing Freedom for Grain Farmers ActGovernment Orders

October 19th, 2011 / 4:20 p.m.
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Cypress Hills—Grasslands Saskatchewan

Conservative

David Anderson ConservativeParliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Natural Resources and for the Canadian Wheat Board

Madam Speaker, one of the disadvantages both members opposite have is coming late to the discussion. I guess neither of them is aware of the failures of the pasta plant projects that tried to take place in western Canada, but were shut down because the Wheat Board would not allow producers to even use their own grain. It would not allow them to sell to the producers. I guess the member opposite did not know that.

We certainly would welcome a new pasta plant there. According to the logic of the Liberals, it would seem that we should shut down every factory in Canada if we want to protect the prices of our natural resources, which is ridiculous. I do not know where they are coming from in even making a suggestion like that.

I want to ask the member one thing. I talked to some Winnipeg-based businesses that do marketing for farmers in some of the specialty crops. They told me they had around 1,000 customers right now and they were absolutely thrilled that they would have the opportunity. They said that the problem for them would be accessing enough employees to do the work when moving from 1,000 to potentially 15,000 customers.

Why is he not prepared to support the Winnipeg businesses that really see this as an opportunity?

Marketing Freedom for Grain Farmers ActGovernment Orders

October 19th, 2011 / 4:20 p.m.
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NDP

Pat Martin NDP Winnipeg Centre, MB

Madam Speaker, it gives me an opportunity to answer the question that the member should have asked, which is, What is going to happen to Canadian wheat as a commodity? I can answer that question for him. Canadian wheat, which has a reputation around the world as the highest quality and maintained as such by the work of the Canadian Wheat Board and its quality control, will be lost as a Canadian commodity because it will be blended.

When the big agrifood and grain companies take over and we sell our number one grade, fine quality Canadian wheat, it will be mixed with some substandard wheat from somewhere else in the United States and will be sold offshore that way. Our customers are going to lose their confidence in the Canadian product if we cannot maintain the highest standards that we currently enjoy and the reputation that we earned stemming from that.

Marketing Freedom for Grain Farmers ActGovernment Orders

October 19th, 2011 / 4:25 p.m.
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NDP

Alex Atamanenko NDP British Columbia Southern Interior, BC

Madam Speaker, last night some of us were here in a debate trying to support democracy in Ukraine. It seems ironic that we are now witnessing the erosion of democracy in our own country.

I have before me a communiqué from the Canadian Wheat Board Alliance, a non-partisan group, in support of the Canadian Wheat Board. It stated:

At a widely quoted election forum in Minnedosa, Manitoba, [the minister] said his party “respects the vote” of farmers who support the single desk and suggested there would not be any attempt to dismantle the Canadian Wheat Board unless a majority of producers vote for it.

He went on to say:

—until farmers make that change, I’m not prepared to work arbitrarily. They are absolutely right to believe in democracy. I do, too.

This was during the election. We get the spin that somehow, because many people voted for the Conservatives on the Prairies, this is the mandate. What about the fact that farmers are only 2% of the population spread over 57 western ridings? Claiming the Conservative Party has a mandate from farmers to change the Wheat Board is ridiculous. Most urban voters agree that farmers should decide this issue.

Would my colleague please comment on this?

Marketing Freedom for Grain Farmers ActGovernment Orders

October 19th, 2011 / 4:25 p.m.
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NDP

Pat Martin NDP Winnipeg Centre, MB

Madam Speaker, if we take the Conservatives at their word that they want to give more marketing choice to farmers, why do they not let them vote on it as the legislation demands and as the minister promised farmers?

He is being disingenuous, which perhaps is too kind a word, when he says that all western farmers want to do away with the Canadian Wheat Board. He certainly was disingenuous with the people of that area, saying, “Go ahead and vote Conservative. It does not mean it is a referendum on the Wheat Board”. Then he stood up on May 2 and said that he got a referendum on the Wheat Board.

The only way to test the merits of the argument of the Conservatives is to put it to farmers and let them decide.

If, on a fair question and a democratic vote, farmers say they want to do away with the Wheat Board even by 51%, the government will not hear another word from me or my colleagues in the NDP. We would respect the democratic will of farmers, not ignore it and insult it the way the government has.

Marketing Freedom for Grain Farmers ActGovernment Orders

October 19th, 2011 / 4:25 p.m.
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Conservative

Randy Hoback Conservative Prince Albert, SK

Madam Speaker, this past summer supposedly the board sent out a plebiscite and it said it had 22,000 supporters. Would the hon. member tell me why it did not sign up acres in the 22,000 supporters? Could he explain to me why there is accredited exporters here in Ottawa saying they cannot source grain?

Why can the board not do both? Why can it not offer the grain from these 22,000 supporters to the people who are already marketing that grain on their behalf?

Marketing Freedom for Grain Farmers ActGovernment Orders

October 19th, 2011 / 4:25 p.m.
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NDP

Pat Martin NDP Winnipeg Centre, MB

Madam Speaker, I do not think my colleague should challenge the merits or the veracity of the plebiscite that took place. It was done by an independent third party. I am trying to remember if it was KPMG or PricewaterhouseCoopers. It was a clear question, a fair question. We did not need any Clarity Act on the question: “Do you want to maintain the single desk monopoly?” A clear majority of farmers voted to keep it.

We have to respect that. If one calls oneself a democrat, one has to respect the democratic will of people as clearly expressed in a fair and honest vote.

The Conservatives may be unwilling to uphold their obligation to farmers to conduct a vote as per the legislation, but the Canadian Wheat Board had one and the results were clear. We have to respect that. It is all about respect.

Marketing Freedom for Grain Farmers ActGovernment Orders

October 19th, 2011 / 4:25 p.m.
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NDP

Charlie Angus NDP Timmins—James Bay, ON

Madam Speaker, the Conservatives have misrepresented in the House when they said that Ontario farmers had a choice. Ontario farmers were given a vote. Their markets were completely different. There is a much smaller market into the United States as opposed to the massive distances covered by prairie farmers.

Why is it the hon. member thinks that the government is opposed to allowing farmers the right to vote?

Marketing Freedom for Grain Farmers ActGovernment Orders

October 19th, 2011 / 4:25 p.m.
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NDP

Pat Martin NDP Winnipeg Centre, MB

Madam Speaker, let me reiterate that if there were such a vote and the prairie farmers voted even by 51% or 50% plus one, that would be the last the House would hear about it from us.

If the farmers of Ontario voted to do away with the marketing system they had, that is their business; that is their right, just as it should be the right of prairie farmers to make that choice. It should not be arbitrarily imposed by a bunch of ideological zealots.

Marketing Freedom for Grain Farmers ActGovernment Orders

October 19th, 2011 / 4:30 p.m.
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NDP

The Deputy Speaker NDP Denise Savoie

Before resuming debate, it is my duty, pursuant to Standing Order 38, to inform the House that the question to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment is as follows: the hon. member for Edmonton—Strathcona, Aboriginal Affairs.

Marketing Freedom for Grain Farmers ActGovernment Orders

October 19th, 2011 / 4:30 p.m.
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Liberal

Frank Valeriote Liberal Guelph, ON

Madam Speaker, we should not even be debating Bill C-18 today. Alongside tens of thousands of western Canadian farmers, members on this side of the House await the plebiscite the Conservative government is legally required to hold under section 47.1 of the Canadian Wheat Board Act before it can apply its ideological scalpel to a Canadian institution that has been the backbone of grain farming across the Prairies for decades.

Nevertheless, if we have learned anything from the behaviour of the government in the early days of this Parliament, it is that its ministers are rolling out the greatest hits of the Reform Party. Throwing caution to the wind, it is stifling debate as much as possible and taking the rest of Canada along with it no matter who it negatively impacts.

Neither the Prime Minister nor the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food has ever made much of a secret of their single-minded desire for the death of the single desk system. What they have kept from enquiring Canadians are the reasons they refuse to hold a plebiscite of the Wheat Board membership, or even why in March, heading into an election, the minister assured farmers that there was no reason to worry and that their opinions would be sought on the Wheat Board when it came forward in this Parliament.

Once it became clear that the minister had no intention of honouring his March pledge, the Canadian Wheat Board held its own plebiscite on the continued operation of the single desk under the Canadian Wheat Board. The results were clear. The majority of western Canadian grain farmers chose the stability, competitive advantage and clout, not just in Canada but overseas, that it enjoys due to its numbers brought together under a single desk.

In August 68,000 ballots were mailed out to farmers. Over the course of that month meetings were held across the Prairies and hundreds of farmers came in off the fields for meetings as harvest began simply to ensure their voices were heard. Farmers for both sides attended these meetings. They listened respectfully and made their points as to why they believed it should go or why it should stay.

I attended several of these meetings and was astonished, as were the organizers. Never before had they held a single meeting where over 500 farmers attended, such as the one in Saskatoon in early August. I set out to listen to the different viewpoints of various farmers and at one meeting was pulled aside by one farmer from the Saskatoon area. He said to me, and I will paraphrase because he used much more colourful language, “I haven't voted Liberal in the last thousand years and it's unlikely that I will in the next thousand years, but I certainly did not vote Conservative so that they could kill the Canadian Wheat Board”.

I may not have changed his vote, but what he wanted to ensure was that someone in Ottawa was listening to him. Sadly, he could not go to his own MP because just when farmers are asking them to listen and represent the farmers' best interests, Conservative MPs are nowhere to be seen or heard. Not one. Not one single Conservative prairie MP has the courage to stand up and defend the rights of his or her constituents to hold a government-conducted plebiscite as mandated by section 47.1 of the act.

The Conservative Party only received 24% of eligible Canadian votes, which certainly does not constitute a mandate to run roughshod over the democratic rights of farmers to maintain their livelihoods under the Canadian Wheat Board Act.

Desperate to have their voices heard, farmers held their own plebiscite. The results of the plebiscite were unambiguous with a 56% response rate, a number similar to the turnout in many recent general elections and byelections, including in the minister's own riding. Sixty-two per cent of wheat producers and 51% of barley producers voted to retain their single-desk marketing and sales arm under the Canadian Wheat Board.

Regrettably, the minister simply dismissed the results as an expensive survey. Unfortunately, Canadians do not have the same opportunity to dismiss their muzzled prairie MPs' own election results similarly.

Many argue that with the fragile state of the world economy, the CWB is more important than ever before for the grain-exporting prairie provinces. The livelihoods of Canadian farmers and small businesses are at stake.

Recently even The Economist wrote that, concerned about the death of the single desk marketing system:

Smaller producers, faced with mounting marketing costs, will inevitably have to sell their farms to bigger rivals or agribusiness companies....devastating small prairie towns, whose economies depend on individual farmers with disposable income.

I have heard from farmers, even some who favour killing the Wheat Board, that thousands of farms managed by farmers whose age exceeds the average age of farmers in Canada, which is 58 years, are likely to close. With their closure so too will the small town and village economies supported by those farmers suffer. We risk seeing an end to a number of small towns in rural parts of our prairie provinces.

The board markets and sells on behalf of every wheat and grain producer in the Prairies to some 70 countries and 100 buyers across the world. Its unique position allows it to act as a price setter instead of a price taker.

In contrast to The Economist, the Wall Street Journal welcomed the impending demise of the Canadian Wheat Board noting, “more money goes back to farmers than under an open-market system,” the open market system that the government is proposing. It went on to say:

Grain handlers such as Cargill Inc., Viterra Inc. and Bunge Ltd. could see their roles—and returns—in Canadian grain markets grow.

At whose expense? No one else other than our prairie wheat farmers. Recently in a report from Alliance Grain Traders Inc., which is conveniently only now opening a pasta plant in Saskatchewan, said its “margin erosion is combatted by negotiating lower prices from growers”.

From my time on the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food, I have learned that a major reason that pasta manufacturing has not been meaningfully undertaken in the west is it is too far distant from a market that would consume its products and transportation costs would be too great.

Now that the Canadian Wheat Board will be abolished, there is the opportunity to get the lowest possible price for grain from farmers who are no longer able to set the best possible price that will allow pasta manufacturers to offset the transportation costs of marketing their pasta, again at the expense of western Canadian farmers.

What is clear is that the protection of the family farm in the prairie provinces is not a priority under the Conservative government. It would prefer to create an environment that would see farmers fail than support an environment that protects the way of life for multitudes of farmers and their families whose way of life will be dramatically changed and not for the better.

For whom will they be changed? For the well-being of large agribusiness and foreign interests. Without the Canadian Wheat Board which returns excess profits to the pockets of farmers, the larger rail and grain companies that can sustain their own networks will finally have access to those farmers' profits. Their interest is not the well-being of farmers, but rather their own bottom line. Farmers will be left to bid one another down to the lowest possible price to sell their grain.

We know not only from studies but intuitively that farmers will fall prey to the gluttonous appetites for profit of grain companies and the railways, appetites that have been held in check by a steady diet controlled by the Canadian Wheat Board. In the wake of the minister's pronouncements on the death of the CWB a month ago, shares in Viterra dramatically spiked.

Moreover, there have been no assurances made by the government regarding Canadian food sovereignty. It is one thing that small family farms will be bought up by massive agribusiness; it is entirely another to see Canadian farms expropriated by foreign interests not unlike the purchasing of our mineral rich lands out west, concerned more with their own national food security and not at all with Canadian food sovereignty.

It certainly does not help that just yesterday the United States took a backward step with buy America and unilaterally thickened the border in an effort to stimulate its own economy. Meanwhile the Canadian government is prepared to give itself a hernia removing all of the tools the Canadian wheat and barley producers rely on to protect their livelihood, including the Canadian Wheat Board.

The number one trade ask by Americans has always been to get rid of the Wheat Board because it gives our farmers a competitive advantage. Now with the Prime Minister as the head waiter and bottle washer to the Americans, we are preparing to hand them a huge agribusiness, their very request on a platter with absolutely nothing in return, not even a modest tip from a country which has shrugged its shoulders and wrapped itself in the shroud of American protectionism.

There have been 14 challenges to the World Trade Organization from the United States demanding that we get rid of the Canadian Wheat Board. In every instance, the WTO has ruled in our favour and allowed western grain producers to maintain their valuable resource.

Why are there challenges? It is because the Wheat Board gives our farmers a competitive advantage that is the envy of others around the world. We must make no mistake that once it is gone the provisions our trade agreements say that it can never be brought back. We would be foolish and naive to think that our supply managed industries, like chicken, dairy, eggs and turkey, are not already now being lined up in the sights of the government for their demise.

This is not about limiting choice for farmers. The CWB is in a unique position to market different qualities of grain at different times of the year to different markets through a board that knows it serves the diverse needs of many farmers. Its strength is in the fact that all farmers across the Prairies are in it together. Its elected directors are farmers, too. They understand what it is to sell and market grain, the best grain in the world.

Should this legislation pass, by reducing the number of directors from 10 elected and 5 appointed to simply 5 government appointed directors to the 5-year interim voluntary wheat board, the Conservative government would have it that only its own people, dictated to from the Prime Minister's office, speak to the multitude of farmers.

Overwhelmingly, in Wheat Board election after election, directors who support the single desk under the Wheat Board are returned. Farmers elect these directors and yet, once again, suppressing any sort of democratic expression, the government places a higher value on ideology than on the experience of farmers.

These are farmers who understand the virtue of saving $1,400 per producer car on transportation costs through the CWB's unique bargaining position, a savings that will be almost immediately lost. Presently, it is in a position to negotiate with CN and CP Rail to ensure the adequate supply of producer cars. This, too, will be lost.

One of the more substantial complaints from within the agricultural industry is that Canada is regarded as an unreliable supplier of agricultural products by virtue of the fact that it cannot get its supplies to port along the railway. In large part, this is a direct result of the ongoing disputes between suppliers and CN-CP Rail.

The agricultural industries anticipated that these concerns would be addressed in the rail service review tabled in March of this year. Meanwhile, seven months later, we are talking about stripping prairie farmers of transportation infrastructure while the government shelves yet another report.

The government has failed to appoint a facilitator in good time. It has failed to address the day-to-day logistical issues of shippers, like getting them the right number of cars and on time, and is telegraphing to the farmers, who will be affected by this in large part, farmers who do not have immediate access to the border, farmers who are not on the main line, that where once their concerns were difficult to address with the rail companies, now they will be almost impossible to address.

I have learned, through my discussion with the owners of Shortline Railways, that they will no longer be able to maintain their railways as they will no longer have the support of the Canadian Wheat Board once it is gone. The rest of the farmers will still not have any resolution along the main lines.

As it stands, hundreds of grain facilities have access to only one rail line and are held captive by either CP or CN, subject to their charges. Through the Canadian Wheat Board, farmers have had the clout to, as a unit, stand up to both CN and CP to get the best deal for their transportation costs possible.

In my conversations with western Canadian grain farmers, all too often I have heard tragic stories about the treatment of producers at the hands of the railways. The railway companies have such disregard for wheat farmers that often they will send railway cars with holes in them without any consideration for what grain will be lost along the way. Farmers, individually, are up against a behemoth, where once their collective clout enabled them recourse in the face of such poor treatment.

The government also refuses to acknowledge that there is a value added of $500 million annually in services provided by the Canadian Wheat Board in the form of critical weather analysis and research and development, as well as the transportation benefits. Even by using a network of over 800 weather stations located on farms across western provinces, the Canadian Wheat Board provides accurate, up-to-the-minute weather information, as well as grain research and innovation.

In a token offering in the legislation, the government is recommending a voluntary check-off to be applied toward grain research and innovation. What farmer will check off additional money for research and innovation while her or his profits are going go up in smoke? However, the government seems intent on spending money, estimated conservatively at almost $500 million, in a time when it claims that we are still in a fragile economic state, to demobilize an organization that has yet to require any federal funding. It has been farmer funded for farmer profits.

Forsaking billions of dollars in revenue with no sound replacement model is reckless. The government has made it clear that it will only listen to farmers so long as they are saying something the government wants to hear. Canadian farmers know what is in their own best interests and the government would do well to listen to their collective voice, not simply to the voices of the few who will be in a better position than the many to profit from the demise of the single desk system.

For our part, the Liberal Party entirely opposes this reckless, ideological legislation and finds no value in the feckless rhetoric of the minister and members content to vote like lemurs for the demise of a system that is still supported by the majority of its members.

I challenge the minister and the party opposite. If they are not afraid of the results of a plebiscite on the continued existence of the single desk system and if they truly feel that a majority of western Canadian farmers are on side with their prescription for the death of the Canadian Wheat Board, they should withdraw their legislation and hold their own plebiscite on the issue, as mandated by the very legislation they hope to destroy, the very legislation that western Canadian farmers hold so sacrosanct, that the necessity for democratic expression is enshrined within it to protect farmers from the very abuse that the Minister of Agriculture is currently perpetrating.

In closing, I move:

That the debate be now adjourned.

Marketing Freedom for Grain Farmers ActGovernment Orders

October 19th, 2011 / 4:45 p.m.
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NDP

The Deputy Speaker NDP Denise Savoie

Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

Marketing Freedom for Grain Farmers ActGovernment Orders

October 19th, 2011 / 4:45 p.m.
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Some hon. members

Agreed.

No.

Marketing Freedom for Grain Farmers ActGovernment Orders

October 19th, 2011 / 4:45 p.m.
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NDP

The Deputy Speaker NDP Denise Savoie

All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.

Marketing Freedom for Grain Farmers ActGovernment Orders

October 19th, 2011 / 4:45 p.m.
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Some hon. members

Yea.

Marketing Freedom for Grain Farmers ActGovernment Orders

October 19th, 2011 / 4:45 p.m.
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NDP

The Deputy Speaker NDP Denise Savoie

All those opposed will please say nay.