Bill C-18 (Historical)

Marketing Freedom for Grain Farmers Act

An Act to reorganize the Canadian Wheat Board and to make consequential and related amendments to certain Acts

Part 1 of this enactment amends the Canadian Wheat Board Act to change the governance structure of the Canadian Wheat Board and to make other changes in preparation for the implementation of Parts 2 and 3. Part 2 replaces the Canadian Wheat Board Act with a new Act that continues the Canadian Wheat Board and charges it with the marketing of grain through voluntary pooling. Part 3 provides for the possible continuation of the Board under other federal legislation, while Part 4 provides for its winding up if no such continuation occurs. Finally, Part 5 provides for the repeal of the new Act enacted by Part 2.

Marketing Freedom for Grain Farmers Act

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

Mr. Speaker, this debate has been going on for well over 20 years in this place. Western Canadian farmers know what our party stands for when it comes to giving freedom to western Canadian producers. This debate is not recent. The bill, although introduced recently, is not a new issue. This is an issue that has been at the forefront of western Canadian producers for generations. For my colleague to suggest that for some reason we are stifling debate, it is absolutely untrue. This debate has gone on long enough.

Our intentions have always been clear. We are acting on those intentions. We will get the job done and we will get it done tonight.

[Frank Valeriote, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Mr. Speaker, fragmented, the board loses its clout with the railways, grain companies and its clout in being price setters and not price takers.

Why does the member opposite, who has just made his remarks, ignore the comments of The Economist that said quite clearly that small farms will close and that small farming communities will be negatively affected, changing the face of western rural culture?

Why does he ignore the comments of The Wall Street Journal that said there will be many profits in Cargill and Viterra? At whose expense? At the expense of farmers because, suddenly, Cargill and Viterra will become the middle people. That does not exist right now because they have the Canadian Wheat Board as their sales and marketing agent.

Why does the member resist the comments of the Alliance Grain Traders? It stated that it will now be able to pay less for the grain. That is why it is setting up a pasta plant out west. Why does the member ignore those comments and, most important, why does he not allow farmers to vote under section 47.1 of the act if he is so darned convinced that this what farmers want?

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

Mr. Speaker, why does the member for Guelph ignore the fact that farmers are already marketing their own products outside of wheat and barley? Can the member for Guelph stand in his place and tell me the difference between marketing canola, pulses or other oilseeds and wheat and barley?

There is no difference. The ability that farmers have to market their own grain now has improved exponentially over the last 20 years. This is an age of almost instantaneous communication. There is absolutely no difference in a producer's ability to market a canola crop, a cash crop, or to market wheat or barley.

The member talks about protecting farmers. Is it protecting farmers when farmers, like my colleague, the Minister of State for Finance, or my constituents lose hundreds of thousands of dollars because of government restrictions and its refusal to allow farmers to market their own product?

If he truly wants to stand up for the rights of farmers, he should join with us and support Bill C-18 tonight.

[Carol Hughes, NDP, Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for St. John's South—Mount Pearl.

I am happy to rise in the House today to speak to a most important issue. I must first begin by commenting that most of my constituents are absolutely shocked by the actions of the government. They are shocked by the level of debate or, should I say, lack of debate the government has engaged in.

We are in the early stages of a majority government and yet the government is fast tracking legislation that is proving to be completely reckless. This is not the only piece of legislation that it is fast tracking, and it is shameful on its part.

As responsible parliamentarians, we must ask a very important question: What is the rush? Why does the government continue to silence the elected political body? Is it because it is ashamed of its position in this debate? Is it because it knows it is engaging in activities that will destroy small rural communities? Is this why it is stopping Canadians from being heard?

We hear them laughing on the other side and showing signs of disgust as we speak, but for the Conservatives it is only about what they want to do and hear as opposed to what Canadians have to contribute to the debate.

I believe we have been sent to Parliament to represent the will of the electorate. However, in doing so, we are also charged with the responsibility to not only champion but maintain the sanctity of the traditions of the House of Commons. Unfortunately, we have not seen this. What have we seen instead? We have seen time allocation after time allocation. We have seen that the government is uninterested in the opinions of Canadians. These actions show how little respect the Conservatives have for this political institution.

Since its inception in the 1920s, the Canadian Wheat Board has been the pillar of Canadian farm life on the Prairies. In its early days, what we now call the Wheat Board consisted of individual owners of modest sized farms pooling their wheat together. Why did they do this? They did this to get a better price for their wheat. In 1943, this process was then formalized with the creation of the single desk. The result has been the financial stability needed to allow prairie farming communities to survive. The result has been the prudent risk management needed to ensure farmers and their families can avoid catastrophe. The result has been the ability for Canadian family farms to survive in an era of big agriculture.

Today, the Canadian Wheat Board sells high-quality Canadian wheat, harvested by hard-working Canadian farmers, to buyers around the world.

In total, 70 countries and roughly 21 million tonnes of wheat and barley are marketed by the Canadian Wheat Board each year. It is the largest and most successful grain marketing company in the world. Despite its large size and formidable status as a global marketer of wheat, I am proud to say that the Wheat Board is a farmer-controlled board, consisting of farmers elected by farmers.

What is to become of our Wheat Board? Unfortunately, the government wants to get rid of it. It wants to get rid of the financial stability it has given us for generations of Canadians. It wants to do away with the prudent risk management it has provided to our small rural prairie communities. On top of that, it wants to get rid of it against the express wishes of the farmers themselves.

We must not stop reminding my colleagues on the other side of the House of the Canadian Wheat Board's plebiscite back in September that told us that a strong majority of farmers want to maintain the Wheat Board. They want to maintain their ability to market wheat and barley through the single desk system. We must not stop reminding them of the 62% of respondents who voted in favour of retaining the single desk for wheat and the 51% who voted to maintain it for barley. We must not stop reminding them of the 38,261 farmers who submitted mail-in ballots in the plebiscite.

The government now has the responsibility to say directly to those 38,261 farmers who spoke out in a dignified democratic fashion that it does not care about their opinion. It should not be this way. We should not be shutting farmers out of this debate. We should not be telling them that their opinion does not matter. We should be listening to them. We should be asking them what they want us to do. This is a democracy, after all.

A responsible government would examine the truth of the matter. A responsible government would ask what will happen to our modest sized family farms, what will actually happen to the communities in which they live.

It would be only responsible for us to look at Australia. Australia recently eradicated its single desk system and the result was not pretty. We saw the price for its wheat go from $99 per tonne over the price of American wheat to as low as $27 per tonne below the price of American wheat. The Australian wheat market saw the destruction of its domestically-owned wheat industry. In just three years, Australia went from having 40,000 wheat farmers running their own wheat system, to being customers of Cargill, an American-owned giant in the industry. We are all familiar with the Cargills.

What a shame. What a shame that so many farmers had to lose their farms. What a shame that they lost their farms while big agriculture swoops in and purchases them when a farmer is desperate.

Why, then, is the government going down the same path? Why is it deliberately siding with big business over our family farms?

If anyone were to ask me, the matter is simple. I was sent here to listen to the demands of my constituents. I am here to listen to their concerns and to fight for their interests. I know that my constituents truly appreciate and value local food in their communities. They like to know that the family farm can exist and that they can know their local farmers who work so hard to provide food for the rest of us.

For example, I have here an email from one of my local farmers on Manitoulin Island in my riding of Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing. She says, in referring to the Canadian Wheat Board, “This is one Board that was developed to assure fair prices to small farmers. We know that dismantling this Board will be difficult for farmers to get fair prices for their grains. We do not want food to be solely in the hands of the multinational corporations. Please let there be some room for the small farmers and for local food productions to survive”.

Local growers form the backbone of the communities in many parts of my riding. I know they would join me in fighting tooth and nail against anything trying to destroy their culture and way of life.

Perhaps what makes us different from them is that we on this side of the House stand up for our family farms. We stand up for the hard-working Canadian family. We stand up for the modest-size prairie wheat producer. We listen to their wants. We demand that their voices be heard. We do not sell them out to big businesses like the Conservatives do.

I am afraid that the Conservatives are only telling us half of the story. They are not telling the whole truth. They are not warning of the dangers that may come to prairie communities when smaller farmers lose their farms. They do not tell of the financial strain that could result from smaller producers being thrust out on their own in the global market. They do not talk of the risk associated with this change for the modest-size producer.

Perhaps the Conservatives are correct in a sense in that they are giving our farmers more freedom. However, what they are doing is freeing our farmers from the protection that the single desk provides. They are giving them freedom from financial stability, freedom from proven risk management, freedom to be bullied and bought by big agriculture. They are now freed from a guaranteed decent price on the global market.

As my time for debate is up, I will speak to the rest of my points in a few minutes.

[Lynne Yelich, Conservative, Minister of State (Western Economic Diversification)]

Mr. Speaker, I want to make a correction to the member's point about the Wheat Board being formed by farmers helping farmers.

The Wheat Board marketing monopoly was established on October 12, 1943 when Canada was committed to providing inexpensive wheat to Britain as part of the war effort. The monopoly was established under the War Measures Act by Parliament, not by farmers for farmers. I would like her to check her facts on that.

I am sure if the Canadian Wheat Board does its work and wants to survive, it could invite her farmers to become part of the Canadian Wheat Board. No one is stopping that. All we want for our western Canadian farmers is to have the option that her farmers have. As to producing food in small communities, that is exactly what these farmers want. A pasta plant in Regina is being established for producing and processing food.

The member had best do some more homework on a couple of those points.

[Carol Hughes, NDP, Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the input from my colleague, but as she is well aware, the Canadian Wheat Board is not taxpayer funded and the Conservatives have no mandate to go against the wishes of prairie farmers. Again, this is about the protection of small and medium farms. On that note, considering the government's utter disregard for the results of the September plebiscite, the farmers are also free from having a government that listens to them.

My New Democrat colleagues and I believe that the government should withdraw Bill C-18. We believe that the single desk for wheat and barley is a highly successful institution that plays a vital part in prairie society and the economy. The bill is reckless. It will spell economic hardship for our prairie farmers and communities, especially during these tough economic times.

The member cannot guarantee that these farmers will not lose their farms. The Conservatives cannot guarantee that the price of farmers' grain will not go down. They cannot guarantee that big agriculture will not buy out their farms.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, it is very important for those who are listening to the debate that we be very clear that a good majority of prairie wheat farmers support retaining the Canadian Wheat Board. In fact, well over 20,000 prairie farmers voted to keep the Canadian Wheat Board. These individuals have seen the value of the Wheat Board for a wide variety of reasons. That has been talked about at great length.

I would ask for the member's opinion on what economists have said about the negative impact of getting rid of the single desk. In many rural communities there is a great deal of concern that it would have a negative impact. For many of those small farms that she made reference to it will have a negative impact.

Maybe she could comment briefly on the impact on the rural communities in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta as a result of this bill.

[Carol Hughes, NDP, Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, ON]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague is absolutely correct. As I indicated before, the bill is reckless and would profoundly affect the lives of farmers.

My colleague talked about economists. Richard Gray, a University of Saskatchewan agricultural economist, said that large grain companies like Viterra, Cargill and Bunge will benefit from having a huge new supply of sellers competing to unload their product.

This does nothing for the port of Churchill. If anything, the port of Churchill will not be protected by this. They already have different ports they can use to market their wares. It is the small communities that will suffer the impact of this. We only need to look at what happened in Australia.

To add insult to injury, the government is rushing this legislation through the House. It is shutting down debate in an unprecedented manner. The reason we have a process in the House is so that good, smart decisions prevail. It is a process designed to avoid rash decisions and to provide peace, order and good government for the people of Canada, which the Conservative government refuses to do.

[Ryan Cleary, NDP, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

Mr. Speaker, we live in uncertain financial times. The economies of individual countries of the European Union, countries like Greece, Italy, and Spain are over their heads in debt, and it is getting worse. No one knows where or when the global financial hardship will end. The economy of our largest trading partner, the United States, is still mired in debt. The U.S. has yet to get back on its feet following the 2007 recession. Worries that Europe's crisis could worsen and spread are spooking investors and consumers.

Here in Canada our economy has fared better than most, but there is an undercurrent of unease, an undercurrent of nervousness, an undercurrent of fear. How will our economy weather the impending storm? That is the outstanding question. There is no answer, not yet.

The Conservative Minister of Finance has acknowledged that Canada's economy faces obvious risks from financial troubles in the United States and in Europe. When David Cameron, the Prime Minister of Great Britain, spoke to this House in September, he said that the problems in the eurozone are now so big that they have begun to threaten the stability of the world economy.

Here we are today in these uncertain financial times and the Conservative government's answer to these uncertain financial times is to gut the federal public service, throw more people in jail, download expenses to the provincial governments, and kill the Canadian Wheat Board.

Now, I am not a prairie boy. I have never walked in fields of golden wheat. I do not know what it is like to live on flat land, land flat as far as the eye can see. I am a bay man. That is what we call it back home. I am a bay man from around the bay. I have lived all my life on rocky land that rolls to the sea.

There is a common thread between the Prairies and the extreme east of this country, Newfoundland and Labrador. That common thread is common sense. My colleague, the NDP MP for Winnipeg Centre has pointed out in this House on numerous occasions, and this is a point that has resonated with me and should resonate with all Canadians, that there has never been one shred of evidence that farmers will be better off without the Canadian Wheat Board.

How can the Conservative government, which bills itself as being such a great steward of the Canadian economy in these tough economic times that will only get tougher, be so reckless as to turn the prairie farm economy on its head without even doing a cost benefit analysis? How?

Allen Oberg, a farmer and chair of the Canadian Wheat Board's board of directors, said:

This government has no plan. It has done no analysis. It has not even consulted farmers. Its approach is based solely on a blind commitment to a sound-bite phrase, called “marketing freedom”. Yet, here we are, barrelling ahead on a timeline that will rip apart a 75-year-old marketing system in a matter of months, and hamper any potential successor organization. This government's reckless approach will throw Canada's grain industry into disarray. It will jeopardize the $5-billion export sector. It will shift money away from the pockets of Canadian farmers into the hands of American corporations.

How can the Conservatives justify not carrying out a cost benefit analysis? How can the Conservatives base their argument on the strength of a free market when prairie farmers freely voted to market wheat through the Canadian Wheat Board?

On September 12, a majority of farmers voted in a plebiscite to keep the Wheat Board. A total of just over 38,000 farmers submitted mail-in ballots during the plebiscite, for a participation rate of 56%. That 56% is on par with the turnout for the last three federal elections.

Some 62% of respondents voted in favour of retaining the single desk for wheat. How can the Conservatives ignore those results? Easily enough when they have a majority government. That majority government power is a breeding ground for arrogance, a growing arrogance that has the Conservatives thinking they know better than Canadian farmers. That is not the case. Not so; not a chance.

What fishing and farming have most in common at this particular moment in our history is that they are both under direct attack by the Conservative government. In the Prairies, the Conservatives are attacking the livelihood of farmers with their attempt to kill off the Canadian Wheat Board. On the west and east coasts, the fisheries are their target with ongoing moves to gut what is left of the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans.

What the Conservative government should realize, and must realize, is that its buddies on Bay Street cannot feed Canadian families. That is a simple fact of life.

I do not get it. I do not understand why the Conservatives have it in for Canada's primary producers: fishermen and farmers. Why? Who will benefit? Who will be threatened?

At the same time that the federal Conservatives are attempting to kill off the Canadian Wheat Board, back home in my home province, the Progressive Conservative provincial government is moving toward the creation of a marketing board for fish.

The federal Conservatives are killing off the Wheat Board, which markets and brands Canadian wheat and barley around the world, at the same time that the provincial PCs in Newfoundland and Labrador are attempting to create a similar type fish board to market and brand our seafood around the world. That makes no sense. If anything, it shows that there should more study, more investigation, more review so that smart decisions can be made.

The federal Conservatives are killing the Wheat Board while the provincial PCs in Newfoundland and Labrador are birthing a fish board. Two governments, two different directions.

What do we know about the Canadian Wheat Board? We know the board sells grain to more than 70 countries around the world. The board returns all profits to farmers. That is between $4 billion and $7 billion a year. We know that the Wheat Board does not set grain prices. Prices are established by global supply and demand factors. However, the Canadian Wheat Board's size and market power are used to help maximize grain prices.

Therefore, it is logical to assume that in the absence of the Canadian Wheat Board prices will not be maximized, as was the case with the Australian wheat board whose monopoly was abolished in 2006. In three short years, Australia's 40,000 wheat farmers went from running their own grain marketing system, selling virtually all of Australia's wheat, 12% of world wheat production, worth about $5 billion, to being mere customers of Cargill, one of the world's largest agribusiness corporations, which is privately owned by a company in the United States.

Since 2006 the Australian wheat board's share of wheat sales has dropped from 100% to 23% nationally, with 25 companies in the market all looking to make money on the spread between purchase and sale price. Make no mistake, people are still making money off Australian wheat, but it is not so much the Australian farmer who is making the money as the new middleman, the big corporations.

I want to end my speech with this thought which struck me today after I read the Globe and Mail. I read this:

Stephen Harper's crime legislation that triggered--

[The Acting Speaker, Barry Devolin]

Order, please. I would just remind the hon. member that he may not use the name of other members in his speech and that he has about 20 seconds remaining in his time.

[Ryan Cleary, NDP, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

My apologies.

[The Prime Minister's] crime legislation that triggered last spring’s election could pass through the Commons this week as it makes it way to becoming the law of the land - and Canadians still don’t know how much it costs.

We do not know how much it costs. How does that make sense? We do not know the cost to the Canadian economy of eliminating the Canadian Wheat Board. That is not good enough.

[John Weston, Conservative, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I have a question for my hon. colleague across the way. My father won the world championship in alfalfa in 1958. He grew the grain in northern B.C., in Fort St. John, and went to Toronto to collect that award. If he were here today, he would ask why he could not be equal with farmers in Ontario who have the freedom to market wheat and alfalfa as they see fit and why he could not have the liberty to do the same?

My question is simple. Why does my friend across the way not like liberty and equality?

[Ryan Cleary, NDP, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member across the way for the question and congratulate his father on that 1958 award.

What I know is this. My home province of Newfoundland and Labrador does not have a marketing arm. It has individual companies that try to market, brand and sell fish, and to date it has not worked. Its industry is but a shadow of its former self.

There was a complete review of the Newfoundland and Labrador fishery just carried out, a memorandum of understanding, and one of the principal findings of that MOU was that there should be a marketing arm established to brand and market Newfoundland and Labrador fish because it has not worked piecemeal.

It has not worked with individual processing companies selling and marketing their own products. It has not worked, so Newfoundland and Labrador is moving toward a marketing arm for its fish. If it works, if Newfoundland and Labrador fishermen are stronger as one, I would say to the hon. member across the way that the same would hold true for prairie farmers.

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Westmount—Ville-Marie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague brought up a very good point, which is whether this decision to do away with the single desk is based on any extensive study of the situation. I have not personally seen it. Yes, it is often brought up by members of the government that this is in the name of marketing freedom and I am sure there are some farmers who want the freedom to market their grain. They all have a few acquaintances who have spoken to them and said that they would like to market their grain independently. However, there is also a large number who, for whatever reason, have voted not to go that way and they are concerned that if the Canadian Wheat Board is no longer a monopoly, they will be worse off.

How does the government make the decision? Is it based on its friends saying that it is a good thing to have market freedom or is it based on a serious study that shows that overall, when this legislation is adopted, all farmers or at least the majority of farmers will be better off in this country?

[Ryan Cleary, NDP, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

Mr. Speaker, that is a very good question. From day one, since this legislation was introduced in the House of Commons, New Democrats have asked for a cost benefit analysis. Has a cost benefit analysis been carried out? The answer is no, it has not been carried out.

In the absence of a cost benefit analysis, in the absence of hard and fast numbers as to whether the Wheat Board fulfills its mandate and western farmers would be better off marketing and selling their wheat through a Canadian Wheat Board, this is pure speculation.

The fact is that in these uncertain financial times, with what is happening in the European Union and our partner to the south, the United States, the Conservatives are taking an incredible chance with the western economy by trying this experiment. In the absence of hard and fast numbers, and a solid cost benefit analysis, that is all this is: an experiment.