Agriculture Committee on April 7th, 2014

[Ruth Ellen Brosseau, NDP, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

It was emailed to us.

[Jeff Watson, Conservative, Essex, ON]

I'm not a regular member of the committee, so I don't know if that made it to me.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bev Shipley]

We can get that to you.

[Jeff Watson, Conservative, Essex, ON]

For the purposes of debating that, I'd appreciate having it at the table here. I'm raising that as a point of order, Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bev Shipley]

If was emailed to the committee, then I would suggest it's up to the committee to get it to you.

It's not a point of order, and we will continue on.

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

The sense is that as we've heard from witnesses—

[Ruth Ellen Brosseau, NDP, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

I can get it to him.

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

—don't worry about it—there are 20 million to 25 million tonnes of carry-over. That being the case, this is a sense of trying to actually reduce that amount. It's not going to reduce it to zero or to a normal level; it's simply going to try to reduce it. The whole intent of all of this is to try to have as small a carry-over as possible at the end of this year, which is July 31. It still might be, even with an accelerated amount, 17 million tonnes.

That's really all this is intended to do; that's why the specificity in it, because we agree with specificity, as I said earlier. We simply want to see this number bump up a bit. There were some folks who actually had said that the numbers should bump up a bit. The issue is whether the committee believes we can ask that of the railroaders by regulation, or whether the committee thinks the railroaders are saying “We can't do it” and they accept that.

On our side, we don't accept the railroaders' excuses anymore, quite frankly. We think they should rise to the challenge and do it, not simply tell us that, sorry, we'll just have to steal from someone else. I think that's a bit of a hedge game, quite frankly, on behalf of the railroaders. Why wouldn't they do it? They are the ones who took all the capacity out of the system in the first place, starting with CN five years ago, and then of course last year with CP. They are doing well. All of us know that. They are doing well and the other parts of the system aren't doing well. It's now time to challenge them to do well by the other parts in the system, not just by themselves.

I would hope my friends across the way might want to actually say let's bump it up a bit, let's put a challenge in front of them that says let's get this, and let's see if they can help fix a situation that we all agree is not a good one.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bev Shipley]

Mr. Lemieux.

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

Thank you, Chair.

I think I would respond to that by saying that this legislation requires the rail companies to move 1 million metric tons of grain a week. It is an ambitious but achievable target. It is ambitious.

We had many witnesses come in front of committee. We had the Freight Management Association. We had the Mining Association of Canada. We had the Canadian Federation of Agriculture. We had the Western Barley Growers Association. They came here and they said things like this: “My concern is that the difference in cars will come at the expense of other commodities.”

Our government is focused on the economy. The grain sector is a vital part of the economy, hence this legislation, but it cannot be at the jeopardy of all other products that move by rail. I think I listed at least four witnesses who were in front of committee just last week saying that they were even worried at 1 million metric tons, and you're increasing that by almost 20%.

I don't think it's a good amendment at all. I think there is already pressure on the rail companies. We see it, Chair, in terms of the goals that have been set for them, at $100,000 a day if they are unable to meet those targets. We have the amendment we just passed regarding service-level agreements and what the impact would be on them if they were to breach service-level agreements.

I think this would actually jeopardize other...and I'm sure it's not appreciated by other sectors of the economy that move product by rail.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bev Shipley]

Mr. Eyking.

[Mark Eyking, Liberal, Sydney—Victoria, NS]

Thank you, Chair.

I know the Minister of Agriculture of Saskatchewan wanted to come before the committee, but for some reason it didn't happen. I think the Minister of Agriculture, Lyle Stewart, also came forward with that number—590,000. I'm sure he would have been talking to his cabinet colleagues because grain is important to Saskatchewan, but also potash, oil. I think the Province of Saskatchewan would have done their due diligence here to come up with that figure, and looked at that figure, that it wasn't going to be to the detriment of the other commodities that are important to the province. Looking at that 590,000, I think coming from that source, the Minister of Agriculture of Saskatchewan, it's a pretty good source for a figure.

Thank you, Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bev Shipley]

Mr. Watson.

[Jeff Watson, Conservative, Essex, ON]

First of all, let me thank Ms. Brosseau for providing the letter so I could read it.

In reading the letter from the Government of Saskatchewan, they attribute the number of 13,000 cars cryptically, if you will, under the statement that industry says they can support that. Were that true, Chair, we would have heard industry say that, they were at this committee. They're already suggesting that 11,000 cars won't be met. Fair enough, I don't know the veracity of that statement, but having said that, their testimony directly contradicts what the letter alludes: they said they would support the Government of Saskatchewan. We have testimony here that suggests that 11,000 cars, which is the standard right now, is already a lot; they're not sure they're going to make it. Bumping it up certainly wouldn't be based on any testimony we've received at this committee. I'm inclined to accept the testimony as it's been presented to the committee, rather than another government's representation of what they thought industry said.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bev Shipley]

Mr. Zimmer.

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I just visited my constituency last weekend and talked to some mill folks back there. I think they already have much more pulp in the lot than they would like to have there. This would further exacerbate their particular problem. The forest industry is already hurting. Coal, oil, and gas are also fighting for capacity, and this would make it even worse. What has been said so many times, I don't think grain producers have been asking for that anyway. They want to have access, but they don't want to put undue pressure on the other commodities in Canada. I don't think it's warranted. I think 500,000 per carrier is adequate at this time.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bev Shipley]

(Amendment negatived: nays 5; yeas 4)

We'll move on to NDP-3 amendment 6495074.

Ms. Brosseau, please.

[Ruth Ellen Brosseau, NDP, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

This next amendment that we have put together goes as follows: “...in Clause 6, be amended by adding after line 35 on page 3 the following: (2.1) For greater certainty, the Governor in Council shall, in making an order under subsection (2), specify a distribution of the volume of grain that ensures that affected regions receive equitable service.”

We think this is an important amendment to have based on witness testimony here at committee. Many witnesses have raised these concerns to make sure that it would benefit farmers, and that it would not leave out certain people—people who are further away from the port. This amendment is just to make sure there's an equitable service to all farmers.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bev Shipley]

Thank you, Madam Brosseau.

Mr. Allen.

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

I think really what we're saying is this. You'll notice that there's no specificity in this. Unlike our previous amendment where there was specificity around a number, there isn't in this. In other words, it's for the order in council of the government to make a decision. What we did here was...folks were concerned about the corridors. Perhaps one corridor will exclusively be the one used and others may be forgotten somewhat. The idea of doing it this way is to say to the government, if you see it happening, then on you go. You can then have the ability to say—do you know what?—you've forgotten about that quarter so you should actually have been sending some down that way.

I know in my riding, for instance, both the mills in my riding were short. The millers' association and others were telling us that stuff moving east wasn't moving as well as it should. And we certainly know about oats. Lots of folks were telling us about oats going south, but they weren't going south at all in some cases. This is really about trying to ensure that there is some sort of movement in the corridors but without a specificity to it. It doesn't say, thou shalt do this. We'll leave that to the decision-makers to do rather than simply saying...through the legislation. We're hearing what the parliamentary secretaries are suggesting, which is this idea of rather than drilling down into...we'll have a number for this or a number for that. The whole idea is to look and make sure that it actually gets moved around.

So we'll see how the government feels about it.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bev Shipley]

Thank you very much, Mr. Allen.

Comments?

Mr. Watson, please.

[Jeff Watson, Conservative, Essex, ON]

Just listening to the explanation you're talking about corridors but the measure in front of us talks about regions. What regions? The Prairies as a region? B.C. as a region? Eastern Canada as a region? I'm not sure that the two are interchangeable in your discussion in terms of the table here. Having said that, it may not be a small technical point, it could be a large technical point. We've had some discussion already, but we did hear from witnesses who suggested that the further down we begin to regulate in terms of the specificity of movements, the more difficult it gets for us. You mandate by volume but not necessarily within a given time on the calendar. Now you're committing to an equitable distribution regardless of where flows actually begin to move.

I think it was Kevin Hursh, if I recall correctly, who warned us against the idea of trying to bore down and start regulating every detail in every corridor, and that this would be a problematic approach, Mr. Chair. I think we should back away from that. If we look at what producers were saying, they would prefer that commercial agreements, with teeth, are what regulate the movement of the carry-over and any additional future harvest that's coming. Our G-1 amendment to Bill C-30, I think, achieves that now, the mechanism by which the commercial regulatory framework can take over instead of getting us trapped on the government's side of regulating deeper in a problematic fashion.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bev Shipley]

Thank you very much.

Not seeing anything else, Mr. Clerk, shall NDP-3 carry?

(Amendment negatived: nays 5; yeas 4)

I'll move on now to NDP-4, amendment 6494471.

Madam Brosseau.

[Ruth Ellen Brosseau, NDP, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Another amendment is that clause 6 be amended by replacing line 11 on page 4 with the following:

companies referred to in subsection (1), the producers in all affected regions and the

We wanted to clarify and make sure that stakeholders from all affected areas were to be consulted and they were ensured to have a fair representation.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bev Shipley]

Any comments?

Mr. Lemieux.