Evidence of meeting #37 for Agriculture and Agri-Food in the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was srm.
A recording is available from Parliament.
3:25 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative James Bezan
Order, please.
I'm going to turn the floor back to David Anderson. At the last meeting, we were talking about Mr. Easter's motion. Mr. Anderson has moved an amendment to that motion.
3:25 p.m.
Conservative
David Anderson Conservative Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK
I wanted to make sure the section on marketing choice was read into the record from the last time. I assume it has been, so we have that for the amendment.
There was a second issue that we had. Mr. Easter quotes Dr. Fulton, but he doesn't give a balance here. There is another expert who has been quoted, and that's Dr. Rolf Penner, so I would like to move a second amendment. In a commentary published last summer, “Dual Market Denial”, on July 26, 2006, Penner wrote, “The odds of successfully transitioning the CWB into an open market setting are extremely high.” I would like to have that added as an amendment to the paragraph that begins, “In November 2006”.
Third, we have a comment that needs to be made. I think there has been some misinformation left about the possibility of the board operating successfully with marketing choice. I just need to point out that in 1993 farmers were free to market their barley directly to the U.S. or through the Canadian Wheat Board for 40 days. I understand that there was more barley marketed in those 40 days than had been marketed in any year prior to that, and the board was able to make the adjustment. It did that and moved into that marketing choice environment very successfully.
Fourth, I want to point out to the committee, as I did before, that this is an incredible waste of our time. The ballots have already gone out. Farmers have received them and are actually mailing them back already. It's far too late for this motion to come forward now, and it's inappropriate. I don't assume that the Liberals are going to vote against it, but I would ask my colleagues in the Bloc and the NDP to consider the fact that this is irrelevant and that we really need to vote against it.
I want to add a third amendment, and that is that we take out the recommendations and replace them with: “The committee recommends the following: That the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food be commended for a balanced plebiscite question.”
3:25 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative James Bezan
We have the amendments as moved by Mr. Anderson.
Is there any discussion on those amendments? We'll have to do them one by one. Do you want to do them as a package? Yes? Okay, then they're one amendment.
3:25 p.m.
Liberal
Charles Hubbard Liberal Miramichi, NB
Mr. Chair, if they've been tabled as three separate amendments, they're either one or they're three, so there will be three votes.
3:25 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative James Bezan
Yes, and that's what I'm just wondering about here.
Are you moving those as one amendment?
3:25 p.m.
Conservative
3:25 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative James Bezan
We have one amendment, then, because he put the one amendment forward last week and he has added that.
3:25 p.m.
Liberal
Charles Hubbard Liberal Miramichi, NB
I have a question on one of them. When he talks about dual marketing, could a farmer market both ways, both privately and with the board, or does he mean one or the other?
3:25 p.m.
Conservative
David Anderson Conservative Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK
No, the second question of the three gives farmers the opportunity to market either through the board or to any other buyer. Depending on how the thing is set up in the future, they will have the option of doing one or the other, or both if they so choose. So yes, there is a choice there.
3:25 p.m.
Conservative
David Anderson Conservative Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK
Yes, unless it's set up so that they can't. The intention is that they would have the opportunity to do either.
3:25 p.m.
Conservative
3:25 p.m.
Liberal
Wayne Easter Liberal Malpeque, PE
I have just one other point that certainly confirms the remarks in the task force report that a dual market is not possible, and it confirms Mr. Fulton's statement that without the single desk, without the monopoly, the board is certainly powerless.
This morning in the House, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Agriculture made this statement. For once we got some facts from him, and I'll quote him in full:
Mr. Speaker, the member should be embarrassed, he really should.
--he was talking about Ralph Goodale--
He was the minister in charge of the Canadian Wheat Board. He knows full well...that if we have choice the single desk is not in place, because by definition it cannot be.
We finally have it on the table, Mr. Chair, that if there's choice, there is no longer a single desk, and that is not what the ballot says. The parliamentary secretary's own words confirm the fallacy of the questions that the minister has put forward in a plebiscite.
I'm absolutely amazed that the government side on the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food would accept the contempt that the Minister of Agriculture is showing for this committee—which has reported to the House and directed the House, with the House of Commons voting and supporting this committee in that recommendation to the House—by stating that the minister be allowed to bypass what this committee has recommended in terms of a vote.
Be that as it may, those are the facts. I will say I am pleased that the parliamentary secretary was finally direct this morning and said what really is the fact: that the single desk and the open market cannot exist as one.
Thank you.
3:30 p.m.
Conservative
David Anderson Conservative Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK
I need to clarify that, obviously. Mr. Easter is being silly here, because if the single desk had choice, we'd have choice right now. Obviously you can have a system in which everybody has to be either under the single desk, or you can provide the opportunity for people to go to the Canadian Wheat Board as one of the options, which is what that second question says.
Mr. Easter, of course, wants everyone to believe there can only be a single desk. We're saying you can have a single desk; you can have the choice of the Canadian Wheat Board operating and farmers having the opportunity to sell to other people as well, which is the second question; or you can have the third question on the ballot, which is simply whether you want the Canadian Wheat Board completely out of marketing barley entirely.
So Mr. Easter's being silly. That's okay, he can do that, but he knows better than that.
3:30 p.m.
Conservative
Larry Miller Conservative Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
This is an issue that has no bearing on my riding, and it has no bearing on Mr. Easter's riding. But I'll tell you the one thing we both have in common. We want to look out for farmers.
When the Wheat Board issue about choice came up, I can remember talking to the minister at the time. My only wish that I wanted to make sure of here was that, number one, farmers had that right to choose for themselves, that they had a plebiscite. That's happening now, on barley anyway. The other was that the questions be concise.
I totally disagree with you, Wayne, when you say the questions aren't clear. How much clearer could they be? One states that you keep it the same way, the second one gives you choice, and in the other one you're totally opposed to it. How much clearer? It's as clear as a glass of water, in my opinion, Mr. Chairman.
This is nothing short of partisanship. Let's get on with it. The vote is happening out there. I understand that the ballots are coming back in, so let's cut out the tomfoolery and get on with it.
3:30 p.m.
Liberal
Wayne Easter Liberal Malpeque, PE
This is not tomfoolery, Larry. It's not tomfoolery at all. The middle choice—and this has been stated by many—is in fact impossible. You folks seem to not realize that. It'd be the same thing as saying, let's have the right amount of sunshine and the right amount of rain, because we can have it all. That's about what that middle option is.
The middle option is not possible, so your government is not putting a clear question before producers, with clarity, not in any way, shape, or form. It's a confusing question. You're asking people to vote for something that is not possible, and the end result—and I believe this firmly—will be to undermine the Wheat Board and take power away from producers. I've fought for power for producers all my life, and I'll continue to do so.
3:30 p.m.
NDP
Alex Atamanenko NDP British Columbia Southern Interior, BC
It's important to understand that although some of us may not live in the area of the Wheat Board, we do speak for a lot of people who have concerns about this. That should be noted, and it includes Wayne and me.
I would also like to note that, in my opinion and in the opinion of my party and a lot of those people I speak to, point number two isn't clear, because it implies that the Wheat Board will continue to exist as it is if there is this choice. From the research that I've done, the indications appear to be that this isn't the case. As I've called for before and as others have called for before, there should be a lot more investigation into this path before we take it. That is why I will be supporting the motion as it is, to retain the previous recommendation that we had from Mr. Easter, to have a very clear-cut question.
Thank you.
3:35 p.m.
Conservative
Larry Miller Conservative Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON
I wouldn't really speak to this, Mr. Chairman, other than to correct something that Mr. Easter said that's totally wrong.
When you say there can't be both, you can ask Mr. Steckle in his riding. I've talked to a pile of farmers in his riding, a pile in my own, and a pile in southern Ontario. What they have all said is that they use the Ontario Wheat Producers' Marketing Board, which is similar to the Canadian Wheat Board, to market about 30% of their crop. They have that margin.
Every one of them also said to me that we shouldn't get rid of it. We should leave it as an option. They want that choice to use it when and if they want. So don't tell me that the two can't work together. They can.
And why shouldn't my relatives and my friends in western Canada—and I have a pile of them—have the same option as I have in Ontario or any other place? That's what this is all about. It's about choice.
If this was about just getting rid of the Wheat Board, Wayne, I wouldn't be supporting it, but that's not what it's about. It's about choice.
3:35 p.m.
Liberal
Paul Steckle Liberal Huron—Bruce, ON
I'm not going to debate the matter just brought before the table. I'm going to call for the question.
3:35 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative James Bezan
The question is on the amendment by Mr. Anderson. Is everybody clear on what that amendment is?