Agriculture Committee on Feb. 8th, 2007

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

I would think a letter would be appropriate if that's—

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Yes, I'll ask J.D. to draft a letter, and we'll try to get that out to the Minister of Finance.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Do you want to see the letter before it goes? Do you want him to bring it back here on Tuesday, and we'll take a look at it? Do you want to clear it with the lead on your parties, or would you like it here?

[Paul Steckle, Liberal, Huron—Bruce, ON]

I have no problem personally, but I can't speak for Wayne. As far as I'm concerned, the urgency isn't that we can't wait until next Tuesday to see it, so let's do it that way in fairness to—

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

I'll have a draft letter circulated next week.

[Charles Hubbard, Liberal, Miramichi, NB]

Will the letter reflect...? There are three different brackets, I believe, under the agricultural business, so we wouldn't want to look just at.... What are they now--eight and ten and something else, isn't there, under the Income Tax Act? So we would want to look at all three, I would think, and not just—

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Perhaps the letter could address their request then to give each of them 10%. Specifically on the farm machinery is what they're asking. They said they had a broader request than that, so maybe it should just reflect that.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

I agree. I think that what they were looking at is mainly that one bracket and moving it up by 10%. Essentially, I think we should reflect what the industry and finance committees have recommended as well. So we'll take that into consideration in the drafting of the letter. Is everybody good with that? Okay.

I'd like to table the report from the steering committee on schedule. I think it's been circulated to everybody. I'm at the wish of how formal you want to make this schedule. This is of course what the steering committee has come up with.

We have a couple of issues to look at. We did have the dairy ingredients study scheduled for February 22. Based on the announcement yesterday by the minister, I have to wonder whether or not it's required.

Mr. Bellavance.

[André Bellavance, Bloc, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

Mr. Chair, we no longer necessarily need to hear the same witnesses. However, since we are going to start a discussion on article 28 and so on, I think it would be appropriate to invite officials, from both the Department of Agriculture and Agri-Food and the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, so that they can explain the exact process to us at a briefing session. I think that would be appropriate at that point.

We wouldn't need to go backward and have producers, processors and the mediator testify on what happened previously, but I think that, for the future, it would be good to know how the government intends to operate. I think we have to have a lot of questions to ask on the operation of article 28 and on the composition standards. We could invite witnesses to come and explain that to us.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

On article 28, we do have Steve Verheul coming, and he is the expert on WTO and he'll probably be able to answer some of those questions as well.

David.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

I'm just going to suggest that we accept this as a general order of business for us, as we've done in the past. Obviously it's going to change, and we'll try to stick to it. The fall changed so much that we never got to half of what we wanted to do. So why don't we just treat it as our likely agenda and go ahead?

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

One thing, just as a point of interest as well, is we may have.... We did have March 26 to 30 slated to travel on the APF. Talking to our whip, his desire is that we'd leave that till later, until April. But I don't know how that ties in with getting the report in in time for consideration for what's coming in at the minister's level.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

I know what the schedule is, but we also talked about trying to do some business risk management hearings early on, and that's what I would suggest.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Okay, so if we're going to be flexible, rather than go later, go sooner. I did mention getting out before the budget gets tabled.

Alex.

[Alex Atamanenko, NDP, British Columbia Southern Interior, BC]

James, we know that Steve Verheul will be here on the 20th. I listended to him yesterday, and I think he will explain pretty well exactly what the process for article 28 is. I'm not sure if we need another hour to talk about dairy ingredients, if in fact this is going through and he is going to explain to us what's happening. If we don't need that, and we have a late session on the 20th, maybe we could move that in advance on the income crisis we were talking about, just to tighten it up a little bit so we don't have to do that.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

We have that set right now for March 20, and you'd rather move that forward?

[Alex Atamanenko, NDP, British Columbia Southern Interior, BC]

I guess what I'm saying is if we don't need that time on February 22, let's devote it to that time we were going to use between seven and nine o'clock on the 20th and get that out of the way, if everybody is in agreement.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

André.

[André Bellavance, Bloc, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

I'm not concerned if it isn't February 22, but, since the minister has just made the announcement, I think it would be appropriate not to wait too long to get that information. So I don't want to postpone that until March. However, if other issues are urgent and we shift the date a little, that doesn't trouble me, but we shouldn't wait until after the March break.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Alex, what you're suggesting is that on the 22nd we still do dairy ingredients, but just for an hour, and then add into that timeframe.

We'll do dairy ingredients on the 20th with Mr. Verheul?

[Alex Atamanenko, NDP, British Columbia Southern Interior, BC]

That's what I thought we could do.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

And then the 22nd we'll use for the farm income crisis. Okay.

[Alex Atamanenko, NDP, British Columbia Southern Interior, BC]

Probably what would happen is he could lead into this and somebody else could back up what he's got to say.

[André Bellavance, Bloc, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

Yes, that's fine. That would be February 20. It's because you spoke in English; I simply wanted to make sure I correctly understood. That's fine. I understand.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

That's the thing--on the 20th it will be more than just Mr. Verheul, so that will be a very full day.

We would do that in that evening from seven to nine on that Tuesday night.