Agriculture Committee on Oct. 7th, 2010

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Yes, okay.

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

It won't happen again, Mr. Hoback.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

I will watch this.

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

I have a couple of points to make, and hopefully we can get to the vote soon.

You mentioned other countries. Brazil is a successful producer of GMOs. It has similar rules in place to what we're trying to propose with this bill. The department itself is looking at market access in regard to their proposal for low-level tolerance, so it's already being looked at.

Of course, industry doesn't want this bill. Monsanto, CropLife, and Syngenta are putting pressure on all of us. They don't even want to have this healthy discussion here. They're putting fear into the farming organizations. They're going to withdraw all sorts of research and development. I think we, as parliamentarians, have a chance to ask who do we represent, farmers or these corporations?

And I think we have the right to ask them next time they lobby you, are they prepared to cover the costs if we introduce genetically modified alfalfa and wheat, which is what his bill is targeting, to reimburse farmers when they lose markets in other countries? All this bill is looking at is the impact of potential markets. It has nothing to do with stifling research. There's tremendous research and development that has gone in this country, and virtually all of it has been with non-GM traits.

We have markets. All we're saying with this bill is, look, let's put that little insurance there so our farmers don't take a hit. Actually, I'm hoping there will be other colleagues from other parties who come on board with this bill so we can make the distinction: do we support farmers or do we get on this corporate bandwagon and continue to be mouthpieces of this industry?

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Thank you, Mr. Atamanenko.

Mr. Hoback.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Again, Chair, one of the concerns I have here is one of trust. I'm glad to hear that Mr. Easter made the comment...he stepped out and said that he will not support this bill. We needed him to say that in the first vote. We wouldn't have wasted a lot of the committee's time if he would have done that.

What concerns us—and I think this is where Mr. Richards was trying to get to—is he also stood up on a vote in the House on the long-gun registry where he wanted to see it scrapped, and then his leader changed his mind. I'd like assurances from Mr. Easter, if he is actually going to vote against this bill, that he has assurances from his gods above him that the Liberal Party will vote against this bill. Is that lock, stock, and barrel?

The point I'm concerned about here is in the Liberal Party I don't know who makes up their policy. Is it Mr. Easter, when he's sitting here today? Is it Mr. Ignatieff, when he's sitting somewhere else talking to somebody else tomorrow? I really don't know. So how can I trust him based on their past experience on voting? That's a concern I have with what Mr. Easter said.

But the other point I want to make is if he is telling the truth--which I think he probably is, I think he's an honourable person generally--if that's the case, why would we waste more time on it? He says, we're going to vote against it anyway. Obviously, the witnesses he brings forward he's going to zone out anyway. It's not going to have an impact on his decision, on how he's going to vote on this legislation, so why are we wasting the committee's time?

Mr. Bellavance makes a lot of sense. It's time to move on to other business. So why would we extend this? Let's have a vote on this thing today and be done with it. I think we should look at putting a motion back to the House to discontinue with this legislation. I guess that's where I see these things going.

I don't know why we're wasting all this time either, Mr. Bellavance. I agree with you. This is a waste of time. We're wasting farmers' time. We're wasting my time. But in the same breath, we shouldn't have been here anyway. If the Liberals had voted appropriately, if they believed this was a bad piece of legislation when we started, we wouldn't be here having this debate. We would actually be going out and doing progressive work on behalf of farmers and the agriculture industry as a whole.

Again, it doesn't change anything; it just re-emphasizes why this should not get a continuance. We've heard the Bloc now say that they think this should go away. We've also now heard Mr. Easter say that he's going to vote against it and the Liberal Party is going to vote against it.

Where are we at here? This seems so silly. Let's get onto doing some work for farmers for a change instead of playing these political games.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Thank you, Mr. Hoback.

Mr. Storseth.

[Brian Storseth, Conservative, Westlock—St. Paul, AB]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I'm going to get off the topic of debate for one second because I was trying to be polite and not raise a point of order in the middle of Mr. Bellavance's speech, but I would like the record to clearly show, or somebody to put on the record, that while Mr. Eyking did clearly breach, in my opinion, Mr. Hoback's parliamentary privilege by taking the floor away from him--without just ruling him out of order, but clearly taking the floor away from...Mr. Richards. Thank you for the correction, Mr. Bellavance. When the challenge of the chair occurred, our chair had the dignity to not sit in and vote, as he could have done, to overrule the opposition on this.

So our side isn't playing partisan politics on it. I want to congratulate the chair for trying to keep some kind of balance with this.

That being said, Mr. Chair, I would like to get onto the topic that we're talking about here, which is Bill C-474. While I believe that Mr. Atamanenko has put this bill forward with the best of intentions, as I've read in several articles and talked about to several of my producers and stakeholders, this is a bad bill. This may have good intentions throughout it, but the bill itself is a bad bill. I don't want to get into all of the different aspects of the bill, but I believe many of my colleagues have brought forward many of its negative aspects.

One that really concerns me is moving away from the science-based approach to a market-based approach. I would like to spend a couple of minutes talking about the crux of this and why it's important to take care of it right now. First of all, while this is continuing to go on, the industry is in turmoil. There is uncertainty as to whether this bill is going to be passed or not. I've had many industry representatives come to me about that.

Mr. Easter shakes his head at me, but the fact of the matter is that Mr. Easter.... And no more backroom games here. Let's get it all out on the table. Mr. Easter has come to us in the past and said he's going to vote against this bill. Mr. Easter has come to us and said let's just bring it to committee for a little bit and get some hearings on it and then we'll vote against it there. Well, Mr. Easter, you can't simply gut the bill in committee and not have it heard from again. Mr. Atamanenko will simply bring it forward in the House and there will be a vote anyway.

You ask why we don't simply move forward on this quickly. Well, because Mr. Easter has not only flip-flopped on the long-gun registry--and I'm not going to get into that at length, but he has flip-flopped on issues when it comes to the agriculture committee, on issues when he's dealing with colleagues on this side, so there's really no trust left from our side with the Liberal ag critic. We really don't know...and we all know that his party uses the whip more effectively than our party, which has more free votes than any party in the House of Commons. That's a fact, Mr. Chairman.

The crux of the matter is that I really believe if Mr. Easter wants--and I want this on the record--to move forward for farmers, if he wants to do the best thing for farmers.... If all he wants to do is spend his last dying years as a member of Parliament on scandals and doorknob press conferences, then he should resign today as the Liberal ag critic and let somebody sit over there who can make deals that we can actually trust and move forward on for farmers. So I think Mr. Easter should do the honourable thing and resign so that we can move forward--

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Let's stick to the topic, Mr. Storseth.

[Brian Storseth, Conservative, Westlock—St. Paul, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I will simply wrap up by saying that this is a bad bill. An extension on this bill will only create more uncertainty in the industry for a longer period of time. I think we need to deal with this quickly. I think we need to report back to the House that the committee recommends that we don't move forward on this bill, and I think we should make that vote today.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Thank you, Mr. Storseth.

Mr. Richards.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Wild Rose, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I'm glad to have the floor back after I was so rudely interrupted by the vice-chair.

Mr. Chairman, I have a real concern here. This is a bad piece of legislation. Certainly, our party has been very, very clear here that when you've got a bad piece of legislation, let's defeat it. Let's defeat the legislation. Let's defeat this motion to extend debate. Let's just get on with dealing with the issue at hand, which is the fact that we've got a bad piece of legislation before us, one that will harm the interests of farmers, one that will harm the interests of the industry, one that will do a lot of damage to our trade relationships, and one that will do a lot of damage to the future of farming. That is something that we have been discussing and something that we've spent a lot of time travelling across this country studying. Now it's been left to the side while we deal with legislation that, frankly, could have been defeated at second reading had the Liberals had the guts to stand up and do so.

The point has been made, but certainly I have the same concerns. I was making that point earlier, that regarding the Liberals, I just can't be sure that I can count on them to do what they say. Certainly, tomorrow their leader could come forward and whip them, just like he did with the gun registry bill, as an example. Rather than do what's in the best interests of farmers, they will stand up and do what they're told by Michael Ignatieff.

I just don't want to see any time extension granted because I'm concerned that it will give them more opportunity to have a chance to flip-flop. If they've now said they're on the record as being opposed to this bill, then I would call on them to stand with us and defeat this piece of legislation and this motion.

Let's get on with things, and let's move on with things, like the study we've got on the future of farming. Let's move on with the motion that Mr. Hoback and Mr. Valeriote have co-sponsored to study biotech and its future implications for the agriculture industry. That certainly seems to me to be the kind of thing we need to be doing in this committee, the kind of debate we need to be having.

If this is not a piece of legislation the Liberals can support, then why are we wasting our time carrying on with debate on it? We've been very clear as a government that we're not supporting it. We won't be supporting it. If the Liberals really are true to their word, that this is what they intend to do as well, I do not understand why they would want to carry on with something that they would then see no value in either. We just cannot be certain that we can take their word and trust them on this.

Again, I think we need to look at biotech and its implications for farming. We've got an opportunity to do just that with the motion that's been put forward. Certainly, even in the context of the future of farming, there's opportunity to look at biotech in terms of what it may or may not be able to do in terms of helping out farmers to be able to see the future of agriculture continue with our young farmers going forward. They've certainly been very clear.

I know both in the time that we travelled across this country hearing from young farmers and also with my own opportunities to speak with farmers in my riding and elsewhere in the country, they've been very clear that they understand the need for research and development and new opportunities for farmers, be it new markets being opened up to them through the good work that Minister Ritz, the trade minister, and the Prime Minister have done.... This has been very much appreciated by farm groups all across this country, because of the great work that is being done to help farmers have more opportunities to market their products. These are the kinds of things that will help ensure the future of farming, things like new opportunities. Certainly, when we look at research and development and biotech, we do see opportunities there for farmers.

To see a motion and a bill like this that would do harm and damage the interests of our farmers by removing opportunities for innovation from the agriculture industry is certainly something that I have a huge concern about. It's something that I just cannot allow to be carried on when I know that it's been made very clear to me by farmers that they have a concern about the confusion and the uncertainty being created by this piece of legislation and the implications of it, and by the fact that they're very unclear on the position of the Liberal Party in particular. It just really causes them great reasons for concern and confusion.

I stand with farmers in saying that if this is a piece of legislation that will not be anything that would help in the interests of the future of farming or help the agriculture industry to be able to continue to see new opportunities, then why carry on with a motion like this one? Why carry on with a piece of legislation like this one? Let's just defeat it.

Certainly, to me, that is exactly what farmers want to see us do. They want to see us defeat this motion. They want to see us defeat this legislation. That's exactly what I intend to do and that's exactly what this government intends to do. I would just call on my Liberal opposition across the way to do the same: to have the best interests of farmers in mind.

Certainly, I hear time and time again from farmers on the issues they care about and are concerned about, and yet on every single one of those issues, the opposition, the Liberals in particular--they're not there. They're not supporting what farmers want to see happen.

This legislation is just one more example of that. Certainly--

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

A point of order, Frank?

[Frank Valeriote, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Can we just call the question, Mr. Chair?

[An hon. member]

I'm on the list.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Only if I have unanimous consent, Mr. Valeriote. That's the rule.

Do I have unanimous consent to call the question?

[Some hon. members]

Yes.

[An hon. member]

Oui.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Okay. I call the question.

[Pierre Lemieux, Conservative, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

A recorded vote, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Madam Clerk, if you could do that, please, Mr. Lemieux has requested a recorded vote.

[An hon. member]

Could you read the motion?

[The Clerk]

Yes, of course. The motion before the committee is:

That the Committee request an extension of thirty sitting days to consider Bill C-474, An Act respecting the Seeds Regulations (analysis of potential harm), beyond the sixty days from the date of the Bills' referral to Committee, as provided in Standing Order 97.1(1); and that the continued study, clause by clause consideration and reporting of the Bill be completed by the end of the extension period.

(Motion agreed to: yeas 6; nays 5)

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Thank you.

Mr. Hoback.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Mr. Chair, I have a motion that's relevant to the discussions we're having right now.

Clerk, can you help me if the wording is incorrect?

It is that the agriculture committee report to the House that it discontinue with this piece of legislation.