Bill C-18 (Historical)

Agricultural Growth Act

An Act to amend certain Acts relating to agriculture and agri-food

This enactment amends several Acts in order to implement various measures relating to agriculture.
It amends the Plant Breeders’ Rights Act to amend certain aspects of the plant breeders’ rights granted under that Act, including the duration and scope of those rights and conditions for the protection of those rights. It also provides for exceptions to the application of those rights.
It amends the Feeds Act, the Fertilizers Act, the Seeds Act, the Health of Animals Act and the Plant Protection Act to, among other things,
(a) authorize inspectors to order that certain unlawful imports be removed from Canada or destroyed;
(b) authorize the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food to take into account information available from a review conducted by the government of a foreign state when he or she considers certain applications;
(c) authorize the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food to issue certificates setting out any information that he or she considers necessary to facilitate certain exports; and
(d) require that a registration or a licence be obtained for conducting certain activities in respect of certain feeds, fertilizers or supplements that have been imported for sale or that are to be exported or to be sent or conveyed from one province to another.
It also amends the Agriculture and Agri-Food Administrative Monetary Penalties Act to, among other things, increase the maximum limits of penalties that may be imposed for certain violations.
It amends the Agricultural Marketing Programs Act to modernize the requirements of the advance payments program, improve its accessibility and enhance its administration and delivery.
Finally, it amends the Farm Debt Mediation Act to clarify the farm debt mediation process and to facilitate the participation of the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food in the mediation process when that Minister is a guarantor of a farmer’s debt.

Agricultural Growth Act

[Anne-Marie Day, NDP, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague gave an excellent speech from the heart, as usual. He must certainly be aware that Quebec accounts for 22% of Canada's agri-food GDP.

I am pointing this out, because Quebeckers are often told that they do not have much agriculture in their province, even though they do, and quite a bit. Corn ranks first at $696 million, followed by soy, vegetables and maple products, which you would have thought would be first, most probably because of good advertising. If you add that to animal products, the total is over $8 billion.

The member mentioned how important it was to give farmers the freedom to use and produce what they want, without having a pre-established structure in which, for example, they would be forced to buy grains that were produced elsewhere and that would destroy their own grains.

I think this freedom to produce and to be a small producer, is important for the member, is that correct?

[Réjean Genest, NDP, Shefford, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is extremely important. It is a matter of protecting a farmer's right to choose what they will grow based on their experience.

The worst thing that was done to agriculture in recent years was the Canadian Wheat Board. Farmers do not have the right to join a group of farmers to sell a product. That is outrageous. The right of association exists for all kinds of things, but not for that.

Once again, farmers are being denied a right.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I am sure the member heard from his constituents, as I did from mine, concerns expressed regarding UPOV '91. The government attempted to deal with those concerns at the committee stage and brought forward an amendment. I will say that in good part, they have been dealt with.

I wonder if the member can indicate whether his party still has any concerns in regard to that specific area, or does he believe the government was able to adequately address them?

[Réjean Genest, NDP, Shefford, QC]

Mr. Speaker, if one farming association is opposed to UPOV '91 and another association supports it, it is because the Conservative government, as usual, is introducing an omnibus bill that amends a series of laws. Some parts are acceptable to certain groups but not to others.

Honestly, it is difficult to decide without looking at it on a case-by-case basis. This bill should be divided into 9 or 10 parts, each leading to its own law. It is tough to take a stance because this is yet another omnibus agricultural bill.

[François Lapointe, NDP, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House today to speak to Bill C-18. The official opposition supported it at second reading but will be opposing it at third reading. I will explain why in the next few minutes.

Bill C-18 amends certain agricultural and agri-food laws. Bill C-18, so that people understand, is part of a top-priority, major debate for the ones who will follow, to paraphrase a film titled For Those Who Will Follow, which is well known in my region. This is a debate about patenting life forms. It is a great thing when it is done well. Patents can acknowledge the efforts put into research and the associated costs. They can provide a return on investment for people who have invested in research. That is as true for agriculture as it is for other industries. Patents can make the corresponding knowledge available to everyone.

The advantage of a patent—if it is done properly, if it is not sold for a fortune and if a fake patent is not invented with fake benefits—is that once someone has invested in that knowledge, in the results, and the patent is made public, a great number of people can benefit from it.

However, because we are talking about things we can eat, the very stuff of life, companies that already have many patents on gene sequences, microorganisms and GMOs should not be allowed to patent the genes of varieties developed by groups of farmers over decades. In some cases, we are talking about species that took hundreds or even thousands of years to develop. We absolutely have to protect that while acknowledging that, in some cases, patenting can be a good thing to do if it is done properly and regulated properly.

Probably the most disturbing case, which happened not long ago in Canada and has a bearing on this discussion about patenting living things, involved a farmer called Mr. Schmeiser. Monsanto took him to court for violating a patent. The company discovered that some Roundup Ready was growing in one of Mr. Schmeiser's canola fields even though he swore he had not planted any. A trial court judge sided with Monsanto in the case even though nobody was able to prove how the contamination happened or why Monsanto's products ended up in the farmer's field. Mr. Schmeiser even proved that he had never used Roundup. If Monsanto seeds grew in his field, he did not benefit from it. You have to know how Monsanto products work to take advantage of them because you have to apply Roundup to kill everything else so you can reap the benefits. The farmer proved that he never reaped that benefit. He probably never intended to benefit from the seeds and violate Monsanto's rights, but he was convicted as though he had committed a crime.

The NDP therefore believes that a balanced approach is essential when it comes to the protection of plant breeders’ rights—consider Mr. Schmeiser. Bill C-18 does not meet that objective. As a result, the NDP will oppose this bill at third reading.

In the comments that follow, you will hear the word “breeder”. I want to make sure that those who are kind enough to watch us on CPAC understand what a breeder is. A breeder is the organization that produced, by voluntary selection or genetic manipulation, a plant that is sufficiently stable, homogeneous and distinct from other varieties of the same species to be considered a new variety. If an organization can demonstrate that it succeeded in obtaining such a variety by genetic manipulation or crossbreeding, in many cases, then it should be given the rights associated with the years of research and investments.

As I was saying at the beginning of my speech, we tried to support the bill at second reading in the hopes that the governing party would act in good faith and allow us to amend aspects of the bill that we and many associations are very concerned about. The NDP proposed 16 amendments so that the rules would be fairer for both the breeders, who have the rights to these new varieties, and farmers.

All of our amendments, without exception, were rejected by the Conservative members of the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food. No improvements were made, even though the witnesses essentially agreed with the NDP that the bill needed to be improved.

Here is one example. The Canadian Federation of Agriculture is calling for protections for producers from claims of patent infringement with respect to natural or accidental spreading of patented plant genetic material. This is very similar to the case of Mr. Schmeiser. The NDP therefore proposed an amendment that would have required the intent to infringe on patent protection to be proven, which would have made it possible to distinguish between deliberate patent infringement and the accidental spreading of a patented plant genetic material.

This amendment was rejected, even though it was based on the testimony of witnesses and on the case of a Canadian farmer who had a very difficult time for reasons that, in my opinion, did not make sense. Unfortunately, we will have to vote against the bill at third reading, despite the goodwill of my colleagues on the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food.

Worse still, in a similar vein, there are no provisions in Bill C-18 to ensure that legal fees do not impede farmers’ defence in such cases. Imagine if a large biotechnology company were to accidentally spread some seeds. In my region, there was a huge issue with spinach that was possibly genetically modified. Some producers of non-GMO spinach in the region wonder what they will do if such an accident does happen and how they can prove it and defend themselves against the company.

It there is any bad faith on the part of a big multinational like Monsanto, for example, how is a small producer supposed to defend himself if, from the outset, the law does not provide sufficient defence? He could go to court and try to defend himself by saying that he did not deliberately contaminate his field with a patented plant from his neighbour's field, but how much would that cost him? He would not be able to prove that in court if there is no regulatory framework to provide him with minimal protections, which is what we wanted. This could drag on in court forever, and small producers are certainly not going to be the ones to come out ahead in a process like that.

The amendment was proposed, but it was not included in the bill. Like many other amendments, it was rejected by the Conservative majority. Furthermore, the NDP is concerned about the powers being granted to the minister, including the power in the regulations to unconditionally exempt rights and privileges, not of those who obtain the patent, but once again of farmers, on a case by case basis. To sum up why the NDP does not support Bill C-18 at third reading, the bill does not explicitly protect farmers and it puts too much discretionary power in the minister's hands. We oppose this bill.

The bill includes some things that not everyone agrees on, but at least they make sense. However, it also includes many new exclusive rights for plant breeders: reproduction, conditioning, sale, export or import, and stocking for the purpose of exercising other exclusive rights. This is all meant to give rights to plant breeders.

What is more, it also gives farmers what it calls “privileges” and not rights. It is odd to think that after Bill C-18, someone who is growing a natural variety, developed over hundreds of years literally by his ancestors, will no longer really have the right to grow that variety. However, there would be some sort of tolerance or privilege to allow him to do so. In our opinion, this should be called a right. Ethically, this should even be a right that would trump the rights of patent-holding growers who aggressively come after those people who farm our centuries-old heritage products.

In closing, I want to address other amendments suggested by the NDP that were rejected as well. For example, we wanted to protect farmers from abusive litigation. Other members have talked about that. We wanted to ensure that farmers are consulted on the implementation of the bill and the subsequent changes to the rules and regulations.

Since this could have a serious impact on the industry, we wanted to ensure that Bill C-18 would be reviewed regularly and that people in the agricultural sector would always be included in those reviews. This too was rejected. We wanted to prohibit the cascade of royalties, as my colleagues were saying, to ensure that contracts would prevent harmful royalties from being added at every processing stage. This is not settled either.

Finally, I want people to understand that we are against this bill at third reading because it was impossible to improve a bill that should have been improved out of respect for our Canadian farmers.

[Annick Papillon, NDP, Québec, QC]

I was listening to my colleague's eloquent speech and thinking to myself that he lives in a beautiful riding whose name I can never get quite right because it covers so much territory. It is the beautiful region of the Lower St. Lawrence, which is where I am from. I definitely have a soft spot for that area.

I know that a lot of farmers in this region are concerned because they want to be sure that their rights and privileges are upheld and we recognize how important they are to this country. Our agriculture is a huge source of pride. When I see it or the topic of financial assistance called into question on occasion, I get worried. I know that this will affect farmers back home.

My colleague made a number of points, so I want to ask him to talk about other elements that affect his riding in particular. How would this bill affect his constituents?

[François Lapointe, NDP, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I cannot find it in my notes, but there was a whole section on the flexibility of advance payments. Back home, people have mixed feelings about advance payments. Some farmers are experiencing financial difficulties. When the time came to negotiate the remaining payments on this program with the federal government, things did not go well.

One of the first things I want to do, now that we know that Bill C-18 will unfortunately pass as is, without amendment, is to go back to these people to see whether this flexibility could actually have helped them, in the context of what happened to them five, six, seven or eight years ago.

This measure could perhaps be made retroactive to make it clear that these people need flexibility to resolve their financial issues. These are proud farmers who have worked hard, and they had no control over the events that led them to the brink of bankruptcy.

I will then make sure that this flexibility will be considered for these people as well. We cannot lose our farmers in the regions.

[Anne-Marie Day, NDP, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for his speech. We could add the lack of democracy, the protection of heirloom grains and the refusal of NDP amendments to his long list.

Furthermore, I would like the member to talk about the fact that Canada is a signatory to UPOV 1991, which has never been ratified by the government.

Why not and what is it waiting for?

[François Lapointe, NDP, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

Mr. Speaker, UPOV 1991 is part of what I was discussing at the beginning, namely the fact that we are giving great consideration to the protection of plant material and the balance between protecting patents and this legacy.

Will we sign these agreements because of Bill C-18? It is not clear to me or to our critics who have worked very hard on this file.

Furthermore, Bill C-18 is vague with respect to long-term intentions. This could be part of the long list of things about the bill that we must unfortunately criticize. Once again we were unable to amend it despite the goodwill of the witnesses and the official opposition.

[Marjolaine Boutin-Sweet, NDP, Hochelaga, QC]

Mr. Speaker, there is one question that I have asked several of my colleagues recently with respect to various bills.

What does he think of this growing trend of giving more and more powers to ministers in all kinds of bills?

[François Lapointe, NDP, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

Mr. Speaker, Bill C-18 is in keeping with that trend. Here again, there are many areas where the government is saying it will legislate with Bill C-18. There are the so-called plant breeders' rights and farmers' “privileges”.

There are many imperfections in the bill, but topping it all off is the right to amend the impact of the legislation through regulations and authorities that are as dumb as any minister who would get directly involved. That is a serious problem.

There is a pile of bungled omnibus bills that have not taken expert opinions into consideration. They affect a lot of different aspects of a sector and include the possibility of, for example, regulating other things if the bills do not work. This is an appalling admission that these bills have not fully matured. If that were the case, the government would not have to say that it will do something else if the bill does not work two weeks down the road. That is very worrisome.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Brandon—Souris.

This government has made no bones about it. Creating jobs and strengthening Canada's economy remains our top priority. Through Bill C-18, we would secure the continued success of one of Canada's prominent industries, agriculture.

In 2009, Canada exported $35 billion in agriculture and agri-food products. Last year, we exported $50.4 billion, and the potential for future growth is substantial.

With the global population expected to reach 9.3 billion by the year 2050, the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that in order to feed everyone internationally, food production will need to increase by 60%.

Currently, the world is hungry for the goods that Canadian agriculture producers provide. Bill C-18, the agriculture growth act, would ensure our farmers would have the means to meet that demand. More specific, the act would ensure that Canadian farmers could keep pace and even make gains against competitors like China, Brazil, Russia, Australia, the United States and the European Union.

One way in which Bill C-18 would give Canadian farmers an edge is through the proposed amendment to the Plant Breeders' Rights Act, and I will explain.

Canadian agriculture producers cultivate more than 75 million acres of farmland from coast to coast. Ultimately, the value of the harvest depends largely on the quality of the seed sown. To grow the best, Canadian farmers must plant the best. They must sow crop varieties that produce high yields, resist drought and disease, and that meet specific demands in the global market.

This sounds straightforward, but the science behind the development of farmers' all-important seeds is extremely complex.

Plant breeding is a time and resource-intensive process. It typically takes 10 to 12 years to bring a new variety to market. As members can do doubt appreciate, plant breeders have a reasonable desire to own the results of their many years of hard work.

Where inventors protect their intellectual property through patents, plant breeders do the same through plant breeders' rights. These rights give plant breeders control over the sale of the seeds, cuttings and other reproductive material of the new plant varieties they create.

In Canada, all plant species are eligible for protection. The relative strength of our intellectual property environment for the plant breeding industry, however, ends there.

Nearly all of our major international partners, including the United States, the EU, Japan, Australia and even South Korea have an enticing environment that conforms with most current international standards: the 1991 International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants. Canada's existing plant breeders' rights meanwhile is based on outdated 1978 conventions. We cannot afford to continue to lag behind.

Ms. Patty Townsend, the chief executive officer of the Canadian Seed Trade Association, an association that brings together 130 seed company members, has said:

Due to our outdated plant breeders' rights legislation, companies with an interest in these crops have chosen to invest elsewhere. Added to that is the fact that plant breeders outside of our borders won't send their varieties here for testing, because our plant breeders' rights legislation has not kept pace with the rest of the world.

We can change this and update the protection. We will encourage private investment in Canadian plant breeding programs, encourage more foreign breeders to protect and sell their varieties here in Canada, and ensure that Canadian agriculture and horticulture producers gain access to the innovative new plant varieties they need to compete in a global marketplace.

Specifically, Bill C-18's proposed changes to the Plant Breeders' Rights Act would improve protection for plant breeders in five ways.

First, the amendments would extend plant breeders' rights to the reproduction, import and export, conditioning and stocking of material for commercial purposes or propagating. Currently, the plant breeders are protected only on the sale of propagating material and for production and propagating material intended for sale.

Second, the amendments would enable plant breeders to sell the new varieties in Canada for up to one year before they must apply for plant breeders' rights protection. For many breeders, this 12-month period would be critical because it would allow them the time to test the market, advertise and increase their seed stock before they filed for protection.

Third, Bill C-18 would entitle plant breeders to exercise their rights while applications were pending by providing provisional protections for a new plant variety from the date the application is filed.

Fourth, Bill C-18 would lengthen the time plant breeders would be protected from 18 years to 25 years for trees, vines and other specified categories, and from 18 to 20 years for all other crops. In both cases, breeders could choose to terminate their rights earlier.

Finally, Bill C-18 would clarify under the act that plant breeders could only collect royalties on the initial sale of a particular cycle of propagating material. Should breeders be denied reasonable opportunities to collect these royalties because of theft or the illicit sharing of propagating materials, they could exercise rights on harvested material.

These are five critical improvements. They are five critical tools that agriculture innovators need to protect their investments and successfully conduct business in today's global marketplace.

Our Conservative government heard from stakeholders that there was a need to amend Bill C-18 to make it absolutely clear that storage of seed is included in farmers' privilege. As a result, we now have an amendment that directly addresses this key issue.

Equally important is that Bill C-18 would balance the interests of agricultural producers and breeders and would ensure benefit-sharing through two specific exemptions.

First, under the research exemption, anyone would be able to study or conduct experiments on protected varieties without seeking permission. This means that Canadian farmers, whose livelihoods are tied to their seeds and soil, would continue to get up-to-date information on potential benefits and drawbacks of those seeds years after the release of a new variety.

Through the second exemption, the breeders' exemption, anyone could access protected varieties to breed other new varieties without seeking permission. What this means is that profits would not stand in the way of innovation and progress. Competing plant breeders would have open access to all PBR protected varieties for breeding purposes so that they could build and improve upon the work of others. By extension, every Canadian farmer would be able to benefit from a competitive breeding environment, which would bring new and innovative plant varieties to the marketplace to meet their specific needs.

I do, however, support the amendments as they stand in the agricultural growth act, and I do not use that title lightly. This act would improve the quality of agricultural inputs and would increase the global demand for Canada's agriculture goods. I ask Parliament to join me in supporting Bill C-18.

I have gone back to my riding and have talked about Bill C-18. There has been a lot of confusion and a lot of misinformation spread by different parties that does not really benefit the industry. However, when I have sat down with farmers and have told them the exact benefits and gains they would be getting from plant breeders' rights and what benefits they would see in the future, they have been very excited. They understand what can happen when they invest in new seed technologies.

I look at the canola industry back to Saskatchewan. When I was farming back in the early 2000s, if people had a 20 or 25 bushel crop, that was an average crop. If people had a 35 or 40 bushel crop, that was a tremendous crop. If people had a 50 or 60 bushel crop, they were just fibbing or lying. Today, the reality is that 50 or 60 bushels is quite common, 40 bushels is okay, and 20 or 25 bushels is a disaster. The changes that have happened are because of plant breeding. It is because we have invested in new genetics. Those new genetics have been marketed to farmers, and they have been able to take advantage of it.

The return per acre for the farmer in this situation has been phenomenal. When we look at a 20 or 25 bushel crop going to a 60 or 65 bushel crop, their return per acre is more than doubling. When we look at the operations farmers have, their incomes are definitely going up substantially. That is why the farmers get very excited.

If we can take that technology and logic and put it into wheat, barley, pulses, and lentils in our agriculture sector, we can see the benefits to farmers. That is why they get really excited about the potential of seeing this type of investment here in Canada. In fact, we are already seeing companies investing here in Canada. We are already seeing Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada taking advantage of new varieties. The collaboration and the growth from new companies and the work Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada has done is very exciting for farmers. It is going to make a very exciting and very strong future for Canadian farmers, especially young farmers.

I will close there. This is such a basic act. It has been modernizing our agriculture sector. It is something it requires and has asked for, and we are just doing what it wants. The benefit at the end of the day will be for all Canadians, because when Canadian farmers grow and harvest a good crop, they spend money, and the Canadian economy flourishes.

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

Mr. Speaker, again, I rise in the House on this particular bill to reiterate the fact that we need a balanced approach. We do not quite see that in this bill.

We put forward 16 amendments, which the government denied outright. Here is an opportunity for the government to say that opposition members have farmers in their ridings as well. A variety of people have presented here, and the government should be taking everyone's views and making sure that it has a bill it will not be challenged on over and over again, as we have seen with previous bills.

The fact is that we need to ensure that every farmer's rights are looked after. I wonder if the member can explain why the NDP amendments were defeated, especially the one that would have ensured that new varieties were as good as or better than existing ones. The NDP amendment would have included language that would ensure that new varieties demonstrate unique features that are clearly distinguishable from the initial varieties.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Mr. Speaker, the reality is that the amendments proposed by the NDP were bad amendments. It does not matter how many amendments one proposes in committee, if they are bad amendments, they are bad amendments.

If the member had been there and listened to the witnesses, she would have heard what farmers and the industry were saying. The New Democrats would have recognized the fact that they should not even have come forward with those types of amendments.

The member should not complain because her amendments were not approved. If she writes bad amendments, they will not be approved by this government.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I do not feel obligated to defend the New Democratic amendments, but if we look at the government's record on amendments, no one would be surprised to know that it is very rare for amendments to be approved. It might have approved one or two since it formed a majority government.

I want to focus on the bill. We in the Liberal Party understand and appreciate many of the needs our farmers have and why it is important that we take a step forward. This legislation deals with a number of acts. It is not just one focus, even though the member across the way focused on one aspect of the legislation.

There is no doubt that we need to recognize the valuable economic and social impact our farming community, our agriculture sector, plays in our economy. We want it to grow.

The question I have for the member is not that far off from the previous question. Does the member not recognize that, yes, this as a whole is good legislation, but it could have been that much better for our farmers had the government listened to what the stakeholders, in particular our farmers, across the country had to say, which could have improved upon the legislation?

Would the member comment on why the government not only rejected the NDP amendments but also Liberal amendments and some good ideas that came from the stakeholders?