Mr. Allen.
Evidence of meeting #24 for Agriculture and Agri-Food in the 41st Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was chair.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Evidence of meeting #24 for Agriculture and Agri-Food in the 41st Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was chair.
A recording is available from Parliament.
3:50 p.m.
NDP
Malcolm Allen NDP Welland, ON
The additional piece of this is actually about price transparency. If we look at the U.S. model, which is similar to ours, in a sense, it's an open market.
This is not about a wheat board; this is actually about information flows. In an open market, the only way you can make a business decision and enter a contract is to have certain information. If it's information that's privileged and kept by companies that say they will refuse to give it to you—for instance, the price at export, because certain companies are privately held—then how do you make your transaction?
In the U.S., the USDA comes out with a weekly report. It actually reports the number of vessels in port. It reports on the price. It reports on the sales. It reports on the basis. It reports on the unloads. Why does it do all of that? It does all of that so that the market can be open and people can make a decision. When it comes time to sell, I can decide to sell now because the price seems to be higher and the basis seems to be lower, or I can decide to hold my grains because the basis is higher and the price seems to be lower. That's instead of me having to guess or to search everywhere under the sun and maybe get the information or maybe not.
As we've seen the basis widen, I've used numbers that lots of folks have told me are not quite accurate. Others have used other numbers that folks have told them are maybe closer or maybe not so close. In an open market, you actually have a bid price and a buy price. When you go to the stock exchange to buy a stock, you actually know what the price is, and you know what you can sell it at, because that's a seller's price. Surely we want farmers, when they're selling, to have information that should be publicly available.
Basically what we're saying here is that if we actually want this to be transparent, let's use the Grain Commission to simply make the prices transparent so that you have one place, similar to a stock exchange, to go look for the pricing. That's really all you're doing. You're not actually telling folks what to do. You're not saying you can bring this much here and then, unlike the previous amendment, which talked a little bit about respecting the rights of grain producers to deliver grain, it has nothing to do with delivery. This is just price transparency so that you can make a decision as an elevating company or a transport company or a grain farmer. In this particular case, you actually know what the prices are and you can make your decision based on that information.
It's that simple, Mr. Chair; it's not any more complicated than that. I think in an open market, you would actually want that type of information to make an informed decision. Otherwise the information may actually start to change. Trying to find the Port of Vancouver price is not a simple one. Some of the private grain operators don't post their price. When you sell to them, you have no idea other than somebody might tell you that they hear the price is x.
This will actually open it up. I don't think my friends across the way would suggest that the U.S. isn't an open market, and that's exactly what they do with price transparency. They had what we have now, and farmers realized that even when they decided to put competition on the northern piece of rail going to the west coast, the railroaders just simply split the basis difference between themselves. This put an end to it, because now there was transparency in pricing.
That's really all it's trying to do, Mr. Chair. It's simply to get some information into the hands of those who want to enter into a contractual arrangement, whatever that arrangement happens to be. It's their call to make. They just need to have information to make I think more informed decisions.
3:50 p.m.
Conservative
3:50 p.m.
Conservative
Earl Dreeshen Conservative Red Deer, AB
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
I'd like to read out one of the things Richard Phillips said, “Pulse Canada has a contract to do a bunch of that research to determine the metrics and measure things. I think that sort of work is absolutely key, and the government has funded a project for that.” So it is something that we are looking at.
In terms of the actual market mechanisms that exist and what we're doing right now, farmers are making these calls from their combines. They recognize what is out there and the different companies they can go to. The amendment states “including the delivery of grain to elevators”, so you have to then be able to talk about the different options that exist there, whether you have an on-farm pickup or whether or you're looking at the trucking allowances that many companies will throw on as an incentive to try to bring things in.
When you start to expand the discussion so that this comes into a particular bill, I feel that will make it much too cumbersome. When you look at the options you have, whether you're going to use forward contracting, the street prices I just mentioned, futures contracts, and all these types of things the individual farmer has at his hand, if we are going to give them marketing freedom from that perspective where they can go out and they can make those decisions, then that's what those who were supporting marketing freedom were talking about. They are now saying let's move forward on this.
So I do think, especially with that one line in there, when you're talking about our being able to take this thing from the moment it's swathed to the moment it gets to the port, we are going too far in this, and there should be other options.
3:55 p.m.
Conservative
LaVar Payne Conservative Medicine Hat, AB
Thank you, Chair.
With all due respect to my friend Malcolm Allen across the way and the U.S. as an open market, he might recall that we actually were in Washington regarding...what was that, Malcolm? Oh yes: COOL. So much for the open market. Also, of course, we've always had softwood lumber, so....
I'm not certain, but this looks like it potentially is a new agency that might require something else in the act. Anyway, enough said.
3:55 p.m.
Liberal
Mark Eyking Liberal Sydney—Victoria, NS
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I think this clause dovetails with our previous clause. It's all about transparency.
The honourable member over there says there are more efficiencies. Yes, we sell products on the cellphone and on computers. The issue is that many farmers don't always have the luxury that some other farmers have in regard to who's going to buy and how many rail lines they can go on. Sometimes they're kind of stuck, and I think that if nobody's watching out for how much they're getting paid at the end of the day.... I mean, this is what it's all about, because when you see the numbers.... The numbers are out there. Farmers used to get 90% when you had the single desk, and now they're down to 40%.
But I think that at the end of the day—and Mr. Allen stated it—in the United States there is way more transparency. There's way more transparency in the system. There's a watchdog. You just can't let the total free enterprise system deal with this when some farmers don't have the luxury of having a lot of different buyers to sell to.
You guys are representing these farmers out west. You must know that some of them don't have the flexibility to have so many different buyers and so many different rail lines coming right to their backyard. I think those are the farmers we have to watch out for, those who are not getting.... I don't want to push it as far as saying that they're getting ripped off, but they're getting more deducted than they should from what they should be getting for their product.
3:55 p.m.
Conservative
Jeff Watson Conservative Essex, ON
Thank you, Chair.
Earlier I think one of our colleagues brought up the testimony from Richard Phillips. If the government, through funding a project, is already assisting the industry itself in the development of important metrics and measurements, then this particular clause is asking essentially to do the same thing, only now we're asking the Grain Commission to take on a role that I don't believe the Grain Commission currently plays. I think our officials could probably either confirm or deny that for us. I wouldn't mind an opinion from the officials.
But if that's the case, I don't recall a single witness at this committee who asked that the Grain Commission undertake that particular function. Maybe our officials could comment on whether this is a new regulatory authority being established.
3:55 p.m.
Greg Meredith Assistant Deputy Minister, Strategic Policy Branch, Department of Agriculture and Agri-Food
The Grain Commission doesn't have this power at this time, so this would be a new regulatory authority. We don't know what the scale of that challenge would be.
4 p.m.
Conservative
4 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Bev Shipley
Is there anything else? I'm going to call the question then. Those who support the amendment, shall it carry?
Opposed?
As I mentioned, you either act or we move on. When I said “those who support it”, I saw two hands go up. When I said no, I saw five go up.
4 p.m.
Liberal
4 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Bev Shipley
You have to ask each time if you want a recorded vote. That's usually the rule, but if you want to have each amendment recorded...?
4 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Bev Shipley
Okay. I'm sorry. I didn't take it as that. Any other time I've been in, it just goes....
4 p.m.
Liberal
Mark Eyking Liberal Sydney—Victoria, NS
Chair, there are not a lot of amendments here, so I don't think it's a big deal that we record them.
4 p.m.
Conservative
4 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Bev Shipley
Mr. Clerk, a recorded vote, please.
(Amendment negatived: nays 5; yeas 4)
I will move to a motion on clause 5.
Do you also want that recorded?
4 p.m.
Liberal
Mark Eyking Liberal Sydney—Victoria, NS
I would just like to see the amendments recorded—that's my request—but not the rest.
4 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Bev Shipley
Okay. That's what we're going to do.
Shall clause 5 carry?
(Clause 5 agreed to)
Actually, folks, when I ask for that, I would appreciate it if you would put your hands up. It takes the judgment away from me.
Thank you.
Amendment G-1 proposes a new clause 5.1. A decision on amendment G-1 applies to amendment G-2 and amendment G-3. Those are the government ones, and they are consequential amendments.
Mr. Lemieux.
4 p.m.
Conservative
Pierre Lemieux Conservative Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I would like to propose an amendment.
That Bill C-30 be amended by adding before line 4 on page 3 the following:
5.1 (1) Subsection 116(4) of the Canada Transportation Act is amended by adding the following after paragraph (c): (c.1) order the company to compensate any person adversely affected for any expenses that they incurred as a result of the company’s failure to fulfill its service obligations or, if the company is a party to a confidential contract with a shipper that requires the company to pay an amount of compensation for expenses incurred by the shipper as a result of the company’s failure to fulfill its service obligations, order the company to pay that amount to the shipper; (2) Paragraph 116(4)(c.1) of the Act is repealed.
Mr. Chair, I would also move a subamendment. I read the English text. On the French side it will be noted that in the first paragraph 5.1(1) it says “de la” twice. I would like to delete the second set of words where it repeats “de la”. With that the subamendment would therefore read on the French side 5.1(1)
“Le paragraphe 116(4) de la Loi . . .”
So we just have “de la” once.