Evidence of meeting #55 for Agriculture and Agri-Food in the 40th Parliament, 3rd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was motions.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Noon
Liberal
Wayne Easter Liberal Malpeque, PE
The clerk knows the rules.
I've seen you guys filibuster before, and this is what you're up to.
Noon
An hon. member
You're trying to pull a fast one, Wayne.
Noon
Conservative
Brian Storseth Conservative Westlock—St. Paul, AB
On a point of order, Mr. Chair, I would just clarify for Mr. Easter that the clerk doesn't make motions. The clerk advises the chairman, who also knows the rules.
Noon
Conservative
Pierre Lemieux Conservative Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON
Wayne, you're getting feisty because you're not getting your way.
Noon
Conservative
Randy Hoback Conservative Prince Albert, SK
Mr. Chair, I wish you'd recognize the fact that Mr. Easter is now trying to bully the committee to get his own way. I don't think it's appropriate. We've had very good working relationships at the last few sets of meetings, but all of a sudden, he's playing shenanigans, playing games. Now he thinks he can bully his way to the top, and I'm not going to let him do that.
As I was saying, he's brought forward reports. Mr. Bellavance brought forward a report on SRM products. I think that would be a good motion to look at.
Mr. Atamanenko, you talked about producer cars. Again, this winter we're moving grain with producer cars. It would've been a great motion to bring forward and look at.
But you're saying that now, for farmers who load producer cars...obviously you don't think they have a priority over other issues.
As I said, I'm not prepared to give up my place in line. If they're willing to pull their motions...and I don't think they should be allowed to table them so that they sit there forever and ever. I don't think it's appropriate. In fact, I think we should talk about a timeframe that motions can't sit there before they actually come before this committee and are addressed or tabled...or disappear.
We've seen here that Mr. Easter has bogged down the committee with motions--some of them good, some of them bad--and now he's trying to bully the committee into hearing one of his particular pet interest motions. I don't think that's something we should be entertaining at all. It really is not helpful to the good nature that we've had around the committee table this spring. I'm disappointed that he would think he can do that off the cuff. It's very disappointing to me.
One thing that both Mr. Valeriote and I tried to do this spring was to make sure we did not politicize the committee. We focused on items that were important at committee.
Of course now Mr. Easter--I guess he's sensing the winds of an election and his own defeat--is trying to put through some of his own games, so I'm very disappointed in that.
There is one other point that I'd like to make, Mr. Chair. I sat on the health committee earlier this week, and they were talking about antibiotics in feed. I was very disappointed in how Mr. Easter did not control his own colleagues. When the chicken farmers were there, they did a proper job of explaining how they go about the feed process, why it works, and how they go through checking it and so on. The members of the opposition parties, especially the Liberal Party, proceeded to attack them. It was embarrassing to watch. I was very disappointed to see that.
I don't know what they have against chicken farmers. It sure seemed that they wanted to make the point that they would rather go for the highlight or the spin, rather than actually dig into the facts and realize that the feed our chicken farmers use is actually very safe. The antibiotics they use are actually done in a process and in an order that is actually beneficial to human health.
I went out that night and had some KFC, because I'm confident in our chicken.
Noon
An hon. member
Right on.
Noon
Conservative
Randy Hoback Conservative Prince Albert, SK
But I'll tell you, if the Liberals would have had their way, we would have been throwing chickens off the shelves and putting farmers out of business left, right, and centre. And that's very disappointing.
Mr. Easter, I wish you would have controlled that. You are supposedly the agriculture critic. You should have been there, talking about and defending farmers' interests, and you were not. I find it very disappointing.
I was there. We talked about it. We tried to help the chicken farmers explain how they go about conducting veterinary practices. They do it in a very safe and secure manner and in cooperation with the CFIA. Why they even were in front of there is just beyond me, so....
Noon
Liberal
Frank Valeriote Liberal Guelph, ON
I can appreciate that people have, given the current rules of the House, the ability to rag the puck and drag out debate and filibuster. But can you, as chair, please insist...?
I have the greatest respect for Mr. Hoback, and he knows that. But under these circumstances, can he keep his remarks to the issue at hand and not other events that are not relevant to the issue at hand?
I would ask you, Mr. Chair, to keep people's comments directed to the issue at hand.
12:05 p.m.
Conservative
Randy Hoback Conservative Prince Albert, SK
Mr. Chair, he's right, and I apologize. I was just so upset. It was unbelievable what I saw going on in that committee. I had to get it off my chest. But I apologize. I'll go back to the matter at hand.
My motion is on the Canadian Wheat Board and the purchase of lakers. The Wheat Board had an election for directors last fall. In an election for directors, you would think it would be a good time to consult with farmers on a vision for what you're going to do with the board, what the goals are for the board, and how you're going to bring benefits to farmers. They didn't do that. They hid it.
12:05 p.m.
Liberal
Frank Valeriote Liberal Guelph, ON
--we could sit for another hour and listen to everybody debate their own motions. It's not the issue at hand.
12:05 p.m.
An hon. member
It is the issue at hand.
12:05 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Larry Miller
I have a list here, Mr. Valeriote, that includes you.
What I'd like to do is not take any more on this list. I'll make my ruling, and we'll get on with this.
And you're on there. All I'm trying to do is be fair to every--
12:05 p.m.
Conservative
Randy Hoback Conservative Prince Albert, SK
Mr. Valeriote, what I'm trying to do is explain why I feel my motion is as important as other motions on the table.
In fact looking at the timeline and the venture that the CWB has gone into, we should have actually brought this forward and had an emergency meeting on it. Hindsight is always 20/20. Maybe we should have pushed this thing a little harder and done that. Maybe we should have a special evening meeting to bring in the members of the Canadian Wheat Board and other industry professionals to talk about this motion.
It is an issue in western Canada that farmers have bought ships they had no say in, and no consultation. Some farmers who are going to retire next year are going to be paying for ships that they'll never get benefit from. They did this in secrecy behind closed doors. Nobody here can agree to that. Nobody can say that's how you run an organization like the Canadian Wheat Board. That's insulting to farmers, as I have said.
We had directors' elections where there were members of the board running for re-election who were aware of the purchase and could have talked about it, but decided not to. The reason they decided not to is they didn't want to take the risk or trust farmers that their decision was a good or bad decision. That's very disappointing. That's just one of the other nails in the coffin of the Canadian Wheat Board concerning the way it goes about conducting its business.
Two years ago, this same organization lost $265 million of farmers' money and derivatives. Where was the emergency debate on that? According to Mr. Easter it was not important, so we weren't allowed to bring that forward.
12:05 p.m.
Conservative
Randy Hoback Conservative Prince Albert, SK
It is talking about motions that were actually in front of the committee. I'm looking at the motions we have in front of us. As I've said, the motion I have here is very important. I know Blake has a motion here that I think needs to be discussed a little bit more, too. If we're willing to go through them in order of precedence, I have no problem doing that. Let's go in the order of precedence that we've established and maintain the good working relationship that we've had in the past. I think that's the proper way to go.
As such, Mr. Chair, I cannot support Mr. Easter's motion, nor will I support it. It's just not something that we should be doing as a committee.
12:05 p.m.
Conservative
Brian Storseth Conservative Westlock—St. Paul, AB
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
First of all, I am very disappointed, as my colleagues have already expressed, in the fact that...and Mr. Easter has consistently done this. Consistently, every issue du jour, every flip-flop he has, is now the “issue of the day”.
I'm sure we'll get into this on the Roundup Ready alfalfa, but who was the parliamentary secretary when they allowed the plots for Agriculture and Agri-food? It was Mr. Easter. Now of all sudden he's decided he's going to change, he's going to flip-flop, just before he wants an election, which isn't necessary, with his coalition partners. He's decided he wants to make sure the public knows, for voting purposes, that this is his position.
But that's not what we're talking about here. We'll talk about that in a minute. What we're talking about here is motions. What we're talking about here is the fact that our committee has a policy that we will respect the order in which motions are brought up.
I know this policy may not be documented, Mr. Chairman, but if you seek the blues, I believe you will find that we have an agreement amongst all parties that we respect the order in which our motions are brought forward. I believe that is very clear in the blues surrounding the initial meetings we had, as well as in consequential meetings where we discussed this kind of thing.
The fact of the matter is that Mr. Easter has a motion on fertilizer and the fertilizer industry. This can be a very important motion, I think, with what's going on in the world today, and as prices start to escalate once again.
But Mr. Easter, instead of talking about things that we can actually get ahead of, decides to do his issue of the day. Mr. Albrecht is absolutely right: what he's doing is bullying the committee around to get his way with his coalition partners. It is absolutely unacceptable.
Mr. Chairman, we have a precedent that we have set. I refer you to page 1051 of O'Brien and Bosc, where it talks about the decision-making process in regard to motions:
A motion is needed to submit a proposal to a committee and obtain a decision on it. A motion is moved by a Member to have the committee do something, order its Chair and staff to ensure that something is done (an order) or express an opinion on a matter (resolution). Where the motion is debatable, moving of the motion triggers a period of debate. If no Member wishes to speak to the motion, the debate ends. The Chair then calls for a vote on the motion.
I'll skip forward to page 1052, under “Moving Motions”, which clearly states the following:
A member of a committee may move a motion at any time in the normal course of a meeting, provided that...moving the motion does not violate any rule the committee may have adopted in respect of the period in which motions can be moved.
I do recognize that we do not have it in writing, I believe, but if you refer to the blues, it is a verbal agreement amongst all parties of this committee that we would respect the order in which motions come.
Now, part of this is so that we don't stack up motions so that the opposition or Mr. Easter or individual members can continue to throw out their “I'm doing something on the fertilizer industry”. All he's doing is leaving the motion sit on the table so that he can do press releases on it whenever he feels like it.
I think, in the best interests of this committee, if we are to move forward, if Mr. Easter wants to drop or put his motions to the bottom of the list so that we can more expeditiously get to his motion, which is now his issue of the day, I'm more than happy to deal with that. But I believe it's almost a breach of privilege that other members of the committee are automatically pushed aside every time Mr. Easter decides he has an new issue of the day.
Who does this affect? It affects our government side, because we're outnumbered here. We're not going to pull the chair, because we believe in parliamentary democracy. They always talk about....
Whenever we pull the chair, the first thing Mr. Easter says is, oh, the tyranny of the majority; how can you guys do this to us? But we sit here, we play by the rules, and all he wants to do now is use the tyranny of the majority to overrule our parliamentary rights as members of Parliament to bring motions forward.
That is exactly what he is doing in this situation. He is riding roughshod over Mr. Richards' and Mr. Hoback's parliamentary privilege to bring motions forward. I think it's very disrespectful.
I think this is a very important motion that you'll be ruling on here, and I hope that you'll rule in the right way.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.