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

[Guy Caron, NDP, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am not sure whether there is an issue with interpretation, but that is not what I said. I did mention that there were family farms. The 12% of the Lower St. Lawrence economy that depends on agriculture is made up exclusively of family farms. I know full well that there are family farms in this country; there are some in my riding. There are family farms everywhere and we must protect them and be sure to help them be productive so that they can survive. I did not say that there are no family farms, on the contrary.

However, I did say that we have to be vigilant and ensure that these farms can continue to be productive and competitive.

Moreover, I did not say that we were opposed to this bill, on the contrary. We have said many times that we would vote in favour of it at second reading and that we wanted the committee to do its job and take into consideration the concerns that will be brought forward, because there will be some.

Seed is one of the main concerns that were raised. For example, I mentioned a case that had to do with contamination. Farmers could end up being responsible for crops that they did not seed, but that were contaminated in their own fields. This is not something we can ignore. On the contrary, we must address this and I hope the committee will do its job.

[Pierre Jacob, NDP, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for his speech, which was very well documented, as usual. I would like him to know that the Quebec chapter of the Friends of the Earth is concerned about Bill C-18. I would like the hon. member to tell me whether they have cause for concern:

This bill considerably diminishes farmers' ancestral rights by requiring them to pay agribusiness giants royalties on their entire crop.

Are they right to be concerned?

[Guy Caron, NDP, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague from Brome—Missisquoi. There is indeed cause for concern. That is why the committee must be especially careful when examining this bill.

It is important to understand that a farmer's right to reuse his own seeds is not only an ancestral right but a truly historic one, dating back to when farming became a human activity. There are changes happening in the industry, and some of them are positive. I do not think that we need to abandon all of the progress made by the industry in improving our crop productivity and yield. We must not abandon everything and say that it is all bad. However, we need to make sure that farmers who want to can continue farming and we need to preserve the ancestral rights that they have been exercising since the beginning of human history.

I know that there are a lot of concerns about this. I do not want to be like the Conservatives and dismiss these concerns out of hand. They must be taken into account. Contamination is an important issue. Why should someone have to pay for accidental contamination of fields, for example? If people are using patented varieties of seeds, then those who paid to develop those seeds must be compensated. If that is not the case, these farmers need to be protected. Personal choice must take precedence. I hope that the committee will have a chance to hear from witnesses on this.

[Ève Péclet, NDP, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to say hello to everyone who is watching. I hope they enjoyed their cereal this morning because we know that cereal is a product of agriculture. Everything we eat is a product of agriculture. There are stories of people and farms behind everything we eat, stories of farmers who were taken to court by big companies and lost money. Family farms have had to shut down because they could no longer fight against the big companies.

It is good that we are modernizing and keeping up to date with new regulations. That is not a bad thing, but in so doing, we have to come up with a plan to protect those who may be pushed aside as a result and who do not have the expertise, money or ability to be part of such a market. It is important to recognize that.

My colleague gave an excellent speech about the type of situation that can occur. The farm he mentioned is not the first farm that has been taken to court by a big company for unknowingly having patented plants on its land, and it will not be the last.

We know how agriculture works. The wind scatters seeds elsewhere. There are no borders. It is important to comply with the new regulations, but there must be a plan for the smaller farmers. There must be a plan to protect those who do not have the capacity to keep up with the big multinationals.

It is important to mention that no one is opposing intellectual property. However, in agriculture, intellectual property does not necessarily have borders, as my colleague demonstrated. If I own a field and the seeds from the adjacent property come over to my field, I cannot do anything about it. I cannot put a net over my field so that other seeds do not land on it. The situation is more complex than what the Conservatives are trying to tell us. They are telling us that everything is fine, that everything is going well and that the regulations will work. It is more complicated than that.

One of the first things that the Conservatives did when they came to power was eliminate the Canadian Wheat Board. What was the role of the Canadian Wheat Board? It protected small farmers from bigger farmers.

I went to Europe where I met farmers who dreamed about having that kind of board to protect them from multinationals. We know how it works: the bigger farms swallow up the smaller ones, and the Conservatives have decided to disregard this type of relationship by giving more power to agricultural multinationals. What will we end up with? Agriculture that will no longer have local products or local farms.

If the Conservatives do not adopt a Canada-wide agriculture strategy or a national strategy to protect local producers, what will we end up with? Agriculture that does not respect the Canadian tradition of protecting its farmers.

The second thing they did was jeopardize supply management by putting it on the table during trade agreement negotiations. Small farms that are protected by supply management will not be able to keep up with the market and will once again be swallowed up by bigger players.

The ideas in Bill C-18 are valid and legitimate, and it is important to stay up to date and bring in new regulations for the agricultural sector, but we must not forget that people and farmers might suffer as a result. That is all I am trying to say to the government. We need to have a plan.

For example, the National Farmers Union opposes this bill because, it says, it will deprive the smallest farmers of their independence, increase costs for farmers and increase their exposure to lawsuits.

Is that really what the government wants to do? Do they really want to create that kind of instability for our farmers? The Conservatives have already done away with the Canadian Wheat Board, and now they want to get rid of supply management. Is that really how they want to treat our farmers? Do they really want to put them in a position that threatens their security and robs them of their independence?

That would give multinationals an unfair advantage, more power and more control. Is that really what our farmers deserve? No. I can name many people who agree with me. For example, the president of Keystone Agricultural Producers, which represents Manitoba farmers, said:

We're hearing this has been very successful in other countries in attracting investment in our industry, so that should be positive in the long-term for producers.

We'll be looking to our members for guidance on how they want to see this played out, but I'm glad to hear the Minister talk about farm-saved seed being a priority. That's what I hear from members as well.

Keystone Agricultural Producers believes that intellectual property is extremely important, but that we must also protect our farmers. Therefore, seeds stocked by farms are a priority. I hope that the witnesses who appear in committee will be heard and that the Conservatives will vote for our amendments, if we propose any, or that they will change the legislation.

Based on the Conservatives' record, they very rarely vote for opposition amendments. Yesterday alone, the NDP proposed some thirty amendments to improve Bill C-13, and the Conservatives voted against each and every one.

The Conservatives must stop talking out of both sides of their mouths. They tell farmers from their provinces that they take their interests to heart, but then they introduce legislation that, unfortunately, will eliminate their independence and create economic uncertainty.

This could open the door to legal action against them by big multinationals who have plenty of lawyers and plenty of money. Unfortunately, smaller farms will be swallowed up by the bigger farms. That is the Conservative ideology.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

The time provided for government business has expired. We will now proceed with statements by members.

The hon. member for Edmonton—St. Albert.

The House resumed from June 13 consideration of the motion that Bill C-18, An Act to amend certain Acts relating to agriculture and agri-food, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is a great honour, as always, to rise in this House, representing the people of Timmins—James Bay. I am very interested in speaking to Bill C-18, an act to amend certain acts relating to agriculture and agri-food.

There are many elements in the bill, some to do with plant breeders' rights and some to do with payments for farmers. There are a number of elements I think need to be looked at. It is good for us to have a discussion in the House of Commons about agricultural policy. How do we support our producers, and how do we reassure consumers in the 21st century of the quality of foods that are being created in Canada?

I will start off by talking about my region of Timmins—James Bay. It is known for being mining country. Some of the greatest gold mines in the history of North America are founded in my region. That is why my family came to Timmins. They were immigrant gold miners. We had diamond mines in James Bay. The deepest base metal mine in the world is in Timmins backyard at Kidd Mine. It continues 50 years into production still, below 10,000 feet, which is an extraordinary feat of engineering. It shows that we have seen enormous changes in mining in the region.

We were always told that mining was a sunset industry. In the nineties, the common wisdom was that we cannot compete with lax regulations and we cannot compete with the third world. However, in Canada we have the highest trained professional workforce in the world. Canadians miners are at the forefront of all manner of mining exploration and development, certainly in terms of financial input. The other element is the regulatory regime that we have in Canada to ensure environmental standards and safety has created an environment where it is worth investing in Canada.

There are a number of issues to be dealt with in terms of mining, but the days when men were killed in the mines of Cobalt and Timmins, dying on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, have changed dramatically. It still has not changed enough, but we are seeing the use of technology and innovation that have allowed us not just to continue to hold our own, but to become, once again, the world leader in terms of development. We are balancing the incredible resource wealth that we have with the need to always be innovative and find new ways to get deeper at the ore.

We have some similar issues in terms of agriculture. Agriculture in Timiskaming--Cochrane region is fundamentally different, because we have not had the boom-bust cycle that we have seen in mining. That is a very good thing in terms of building a long-term economy.

The northern end of the Timmins—James Bay region is known as the great clay belt. There is enormous potential for farmland in the great clay belt. The problem is, when it was opened up in the early part of the 20th century, many families attempted to make a living there and found it was just too cold, the seasons were too short, and the crop yields were not sufficient to allow these farms to succeed in the way they should have succeeded. As a result, many of the farmlands in the upper part of the Timmins—James Bay region began to atrophy and go back to dogwood and poplars. One by one the farmers started to leave. We maintained somewhat of a beef economy, but the overall balance in agriculture did not exist.

That was not so much the case in the southern part of my region, the little clay belt, which is Timiskaming. Témiscaming region in Quebec and Ontario shares an enormously wealthy farm belt that has given incredible balance in terms of the economic development in our region.

For many years the basis of this economy was dairy. The supply management system on the Quebec and Ontario sides has certainly anchor communities like Earlton, Englehart, and New Liskeard area. With a dairy economy, we know year to year what we will get. We have seen ups and downs in the beef industry. I was first elected in 2004 during that really difficult period that our beef industry was undergoing. It was a shock to the system of individual beef farmers when they could not get their cattle to market, could not get it to the United States because of the BSE crisis. It certainly created major problems for the development of the region.

In terms of cash crops, Timiskaming has always had a mixed-grain economy, but over the last 15 years we have seen a transformation in the regional food economy because we are getting better yields, such as with soybeans. We are seeing corn production in areas where corn was never seen before. This has started to create a potential for development in the north that people had previously written off.

The acreages down in southern Ontario are becoming more expensive and more difficult to farm, especially as rural butts up against suburban. There is pressure on the rural with land prices in the south being so extraordinary. It is very difficult to maintain the traditional notion of the family farm when there are opportunities to sell that land and move north, which is what we have been seeing.

However, it is now not just in the Timiskaming region, but once again, because of better crop yields, we are starting to see agriculture moving back into the areas up around Val Gagné, Black River-Matheson, up toward Cochrane and over through Timmins, which had been atrophying for years. We are now seeing a large potential new growth of mixed crops, barley, grain, soybeans, canola, and corn. This is an important anchor for development in our region.

In terms of what is happening agriculturally, we have had two important transformations. In the upper Black River-Matheson area, a number of Amish and Old Order Mennonite communities are starting to establish themselves. We are seeing barns being built where there were no barns before. We are seeing tile drainage on land that did not have tile drainage. Once tile drainage is put onto a northern farm, the crop yields are going to increase exponentially.

The other really important element is that we have seen in so many of our rural regions the loss of the value added, such as the local operations that did the canning and such.

For years, we had the Thornloe Cheese plant, run by Parmalat. People used to stop off the highway. I remember that it was around 2005 or 2006 when I got a call from the Parmalat owners who said that they were pulling out. They were done with our little community. I thought, fair enough, they had to make a business decision. I called John Vanthof, who is now a provincial member of Parliament, but he was the head of the Board of Dairy Farmers then. I asked John if we could win this fight, and he said that, yes, we could win. We called the Parmalat owners back and said that they could leave, but we wanted the dairy cheese quota to stay here. Of course, they laughed and thought it was an absurd concept. However, we said that we wanted the dairy quota to stay. If it could be run by a local conglomerate, then we wanted to buy into that cheese quota so that we could run the plant. After much negotiation, Thornloe was reopened as a local regional cheese producer.

What happened out of that is indicative of a need to balance between very large corporate interests and the need for local interests. Thornloe began to innovate and create all manner of new and local cheeses, and get a new market share. The products are now being sold in halal and kosher markets in Toronto. This has been a real success story for us. I think these are the things that we need to learn when we look at agriculture.

There are a number of elements in Bill C-18 that speak to the issue of patent rights as we create new crop yields and the need for regulatory changes to cover breeding animals under the advanced payments program. These are things, if we ensure that they are done right, that will provide security for innovation, new research, and for the producers who are buying seeds and animals, and wanting to try the new yields that are coming forward.

There are number of concerns out there that are important to raise in Parliament. This is about consumer confidence. Some of them have to do with the notion of plant breeders' rights. There is a sense out there in the general public that they do not trust what is happening in terms of GMOs. They do not trust what is happening in terms of the larger food economy.

Just this past month, I was in Timmins at a rally against Monsanto and GMOs. Now, Monsanto certainly does not have a good reputation with its history with Agent Orange and creating PCBs. However, I think what brought this issue initially to the public's attention in terms of the scientific manipulation of gene matter to create new varieties was the effort to create the terminator seed. The terminator seed was a solution it came up with as a way of not having to argue with farmers about having to buy seed the next year. One would just simply put a so-called suicide gene into the seed, which would give one yield and then die.

That might have seemed like a smart idea at corporate headquarters, but it has hit ordinary citizens not just in Canada and North America, but across the world as something that is fundamentally flawed, that one could mess with genetics to create a so-called suicide gene. There was a huge pushback against this effort. It scared the public away. People said, “Wait a minute. What is happening with our food?”

We are seeing, especially across North America, a growing awareness about the food economy and the need to ensure some manner of security for food so that we are getting good quality food and there is a sense of the importance of the local economy. Over the years, we have seen a move to this larger and larger sense of agribusiness, but consumers want food that is safe, food that is good. They like the notion of locally grown food. Consumers want to be heard on these issues.

When we talk about new crop varieties, we need to reassure the public that we are looking at these issues seriously, that we are looking at them from the point of view of what creates innovation in order to create better yields, so that our communities can be fed, but also ensuring an overall balance. Nowhere is this more important than with what is happening with the bee population around the world.

We know that there has been a massive die-off of bees. We have seen a 35% decline in bees in Ontario alone. What does that mean for us? I do not think people have any idea what it would mean if there was a substantial die-off of bees, especially with the role bees play in pollination. They are the fundamental players in the entire food cycle. Protecting bees really has to be job one. It does not matter what we do with our food economy; it does not matter how much tile drainage we put in; it does not matter how many plans we put forward. If we do not have God's little creatures actually making this all possible, we are going to be in for a serious shock in our ability to feed ourselves and the world.

We have seen studies done by the American Journal of Science, the American Chemical Society's Environmental Science & Technology Journal and the Harvard School of Public Health, that identified neonics, the form of pesticide that is being used on about 142 million acres of corn, wheat, soybeans, and cotton seeds. This is a corporate construction that was seen as a way of improving crop yields by putting these pesticides on corn, wheat, and soy, which is certainly the backbone of the U.S. agricultural economy and much of Canada's agricultural economy.

It is not that this was done out of malice; side effects sometimes happen. If this leads to the death of the bee population, there have to be measures to deal with these pesticides, because it is not good for the long-term economy. There will certainly be corporate interests and lobbyists who will say that we should hold off and study this in another three or five years. Consumers and citizens want clear action. They want to know that parliamentarians hear these things. There is a sense out there that big agriculture has the ear of government, and the average person does not. There is a real uncertainty.

What we need to do as parliamentarians is say that we hear the public's concerns. We also understand the need to have regularity and certainty in the agricultural development of our economy. Agriculture is not a yesterday economy. Increasingly, with climate change and global uncertainty, the role of Canada as the world's breadbasket, as we used to call ourselves, the ability to create food to sustain our population is going to become increasingly important.

There are a number of elements in Bill C-18 which are timely, but there are also a number of elements in the bill, particularly on the issue of plant breeders' rights, how seeds are saved, and what it actually means in terms of establishing some manner of certainty for producers, patent holders, and also for the people who have the God-given right to plant and grow and should be able to maintain that right, that we can raise in Parliament that they need to be identified at committee as to how they will actually play out on the ground.

We are certainly willing to move this bill to committee. We think there is some merit.

The issue of farmers' privilege is certainly a big question. Farmers' privilege is interesting because it allows farmers to save seeds for the purpose of reproduction, but it is not clear whether or not they have to pay to store it, which would effectively negate that privilege. That would seem to be an odd element. Also, there is the question of where the resale is. Is it on the original purchase of the seeds, or on the resale value of what is actually produced as a crop? These are things we feel need to be looked at.

In terms of the advance payments program, there are a number of elements. Again, it is odd that we jump from plant breeders' rights to the advance payments program. The government has thrown in a whole manner of elements to deal with agriculture in one bill. It is sort of a mini omnibus bill. We are dealing with a whole bunch of different elements.

There are new allowances under Bill C-18 that would allow multi-year agreements to reduce the administrative burden for those applying to the advance payments program in consecutive years. That would certainly make the program more efficient. If we had similar provisions in other areas I know it would certainly help.

The bill allows for regulatory changes to cover the breeding animals under the advance payments program, which could result in more opportunities for farmers to access the program. It increases flexibility for producers on a number of fronts, including security arrangements and proof of sale for repayment. All of this would certainly make this program more accessible to producers.

It would also allow program administrators to advance on any commodity in any region, which would provide more opportunities for producers to access the advance payments program. It would also allow repayments without proof of sale, better reflecting the fact that there is a perishable life to non-storable crops. Producers would be able to avoid having to sell products at an inopportune time, for example, at very low prices, in order just to meet their repayment requirements.

There is flexibility built into the mechanisms that we think are very interesting and respond to what we are hearing from the Canadian Federation of Agriculture and a number of other farm organizations.

Bill C-18 also grants the government the ability to define new means of repayment. This could provide greater flexibility for producers, including in situations like farm liquidation.

These are all very good elements.

I want to go back to the international protocols that have been put in place through the World Trade Organization, through international agreements. What we need to do is ensure that these are not simply there to benefit very large corporate interests, like Monsanto, but also respect the variety of agricultural experience across the world, including the third world.

We know there has been a huge issue about genetic contamination, the possibility that GMO crops could reach into other crops and affect them. Since 2005, there has been a GM contamination register in the United Kingdom.

The other issue is in India there has been a huge local fight back among farmers about what their plant rights are, and the fact that they have grown the kinds of crops they have for decades and centuries, and corporate control over them has led to a huge pushback. Some of these issues were raised.

Many of the Indian companies are locked into joint ventures and licensing agreements, and concentration over the seeds sector was the result. It has been said that Monsanto now controls 95% of the cotton seed market through its genetically modified organisms in India; that seed which had been the farmers' common resource suddenly has now become, as is being accused by a number of Indian farmers, the intellectual property of Monsanto; that the open pollenated cotton seeds have been displaced by hybrids, including genetically modified hybrids. Cotton used to be grown as a mixture with food crops and other crops, but pressure has been put on to do mono-cropping. That certainly may have restored some measure of yields in India, but on the issue of mixed crops and how farmers grow their crops, particularly cotton, local farmers feel larger corporate control has taken over their ability to control their own land.

These are questions about economics, but they are also about agriculture and the basic issue of civil society and where we go. We are certainly interested in seeing this issue being brought forward and more closely examined at committee.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Mr. Speaker, I did enjoy the member's remarks. He touched on a lot of very valid points.

If we could sum up this bill with three or four words, we could call it the good, the bad and the ugly. There are some good points in it, and there are some worrisome points as well. The biggest overall concern with this bill is the global corporations having so much control over the family farmers around the world.

One of the areas that I am concerned with in the bill is the plant breeders' rights aspect of it. I have not actually determined in my own mind where we can go on it.

The minister talks about a farmer's privilege, and the member mentioned that as well. I believe it should be a farmer's right to retain and reproduce their seed. What implications will that have on the international agreement we have already signed as a country? I do think it needs to be discussed a lot more. How does the member see, or is there any way of getting around, ensuring that farmers have rights and not just privileges? It should be their rights. They are the ones who are doing the producing. How does the member see getting around that in the context of the international agreement?

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Mr. Speaker, that was an excellent question. I have worked with the member on agriculture and he has a wide background on this.

The hon. member has touched on the issue of the rights being afforded in this bill are corporate rights. Everybody knows that a privilege is something that can be taken away. A right is something that one fundamentally has.

I would argue that since time immemorial there has been the fundamental right of the farmer working with nature itself. This is the most fundamental relationship that has existed since humans first stopped hunting mastodons, and maybe even back then. It is that relationship between the grower and what is grown.

Now that there are limits or an ability through international trade agreements to determine how that is done is very disturbing. We know that around the world there has been a pushback against the larger bodies that tell us at the local levels what we can and cannot do.

That is why we need to get this bill to committee, so we can actually look at the legislation and determine whether or not we are actually trading away the God-given rights that farmers have had since time immemorial. That has to be protected.

The devil is in the details, and the devil will certainly be in the details of this bill.

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the member, as usual, has widened the scope of his speech to talk about his constituency and about the rights and interests of all of our agricultural producers in Canada.

The member made a very important point. Typical of the legislation the government has been bringing forward is a law which includes provisions for the possibility of regulations to be promulgated.

A more open and transparent process would be to table the legislation and at the same time reveal what those regulations may say so that members of Parliament, the agricultural producers who are impacted, and the breeders could know what the government proposes.

I wonder if the member could expand a bit more on the fact that it is nice the bill is being tabled, but there are two significant areas where there will be regulations, and one could potentially severely limit these privileges to the producers.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I do not want to sound like I am getting all biblical but it does say in the Book of Luke that what is done in the dark shall be seen in the light and shouted from the rooftops.

This is the problem with regulation. We have a few hours of debate on something as substantive as the issue of plant breeders' rights and how the rights of farmers and the rights of an ecological system for growth balances off the larger corporate interests and larger international trade interests. Then it goes to committee, and then it is voted on. Then all the little booby traps can be brought in through regulation, which the public will have no ability to hear.

When we deal with these issues, the public looks to us as parliamentarians to try to find a reasonable solution. Do I know how to balance off plant breeders' rights with what is called the farmers' privilege? I think it should be the farmers' rights. No, because it is in those details. They are very complicated.

The issue that it can be dealt with in regulation after the fact means there can also be the problem of certain interests that will have the ear of the people writing the regulations while the public is sitting on the outside. I do not think that is in the interests of the public.

[Bruce Hyer, Green, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

Mr. Speaker, we do indeed have an omnibus bill on agriculture here of 108 pages, with very small font. It is unbelievably important stuff.

To again join my hon. member for Timmins—James Bay, and to get biblical, the part that particularly worries me is that the Creator put these genes on the planet. For us to be saying that a large corporation can control them, monopolize them, and modify them in ways that cause serious potential problems is worrisome to me.

In terms of process, what worries me is that with a bill of this scope, we have five hours to discuss this in a House where the number of people with a scientific background is in the single digits. We desperately need to have expert testimony. We need to have more information.

I would like the hon. member for Timmins—James Bay to give us his thoughts on the process of ramming and cramming this bill through in such a last-minute, draconian fashion.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Mr. Speaker, there are very profound questions here. Internationally, we see the whole fight of indigenous cultures who have had their traditional medicines for years, and suddenly they are patented. Maybe it is okay to patent something that was used for hundreds of thousands of years that can benefit all of humankind. There is a public good there. The question is whether the original people who created and used those natural resources should not be disenfranchised, in the same way farmers should not be disenfranchised, in the same way the consumer should not be disenfranchised if Monsanto decides that it will start sticking fish genes into tomatoes and does not want the public to know. These are all issues that as human society we need to be deeply involved in.

To take all these elements of an agricultural bill, some of which are very positive and will help our producers, and throw them all together, ram them through, and not have sufficient time to do the review, when we need technical experts and people of scientific and cultural backgrounds who can talk about what will work and what will not, is not what the Canadian public sends us here to do.

We see in this House the idea that debate is always being called stalling and filibustering. Debate is about raising these issues so the people back home who are listening can say, “I understand what's going on. I see that there are questions that need to be answered”. Then they look to us to be able to provide those answers at the end of the day. If we as parliamentarians are not able to do our job, if we are not able to do the due diligence, how then do we go back to the public and say, “Be reassured, the Parliament of Canada did the right thing with this legislation”?

[Megan Leslie, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I have talked a lot in the House about the different areas of expertise we have as members of Parliament. We come here with different backgrounds. Some of us are experts in academic issues or technical issues. Some of us are just experts in what it is like to come from our regions. We are very much like Canada in that way, and like Canadians, we have different backgrounds.

My background is not agriculture, and so the bill has been a real learning experience for me. I want to share with the House where my learning experience on the bill actually started, because I will be honest, the bill was not on my radar when it was first tabled. Look at the fact that I am a member of Parliament for Halifax, an urban centre. There are a few fishing villages in my riding, but I really do not represent any agricultural areas.

I talk often in the House about how important it is for us to talk to constituents to tap into their expertise but also to hear about their hopes or dreams or to hear about their fears about different pieces of legislation. That is exactly what happened to me when the bill came up. I looked in my calendar one day and saw that members of the Food Action Committee, which is a committee of the Ecology Action Centre, had scheduled a meeting with me to talk about Bill C-18. I am not one to even remember bill numbers very quickly, so I had to look it up. I realized that it made sense that the Food Action Committee wanted to talk to me about the bill, which is called an act to amend certain acts relating to agriculture and agri-food, but I wondered why they wanted to talk to me about it.

I immediately contacted my friend and colleague, the member for Welland, who is our agriculture critic, and he forwarded a lot of material about what Bill C-18 sought to do or purported to do. He walked me through some of the key issues for him as our critic and also very likely for the Food Action Committee.

I went ahead with the meeting and met with Jonathan Kornelsen and Mary Ellen Sullivan, and it was a typical MP meeting, where folks say that these are the issues with the bill and ask what the NDP's position is on it. They presented me with a petition entitled “The Right to Save Seeds”. It had 145 signatures on behalf of the Food Action Committee. They explained that their friend had three pages of petitions and could not keep up. He was at a grocery store in downtown Halifax and quickly ran out of pages because people were so passionate about this.

The petition addresses the agricultural growth act portion of Bill C-18. It has raised serious concerns among farmers and consumers. They put together the text of the petition with the help of the National Farmers Union website.

Before I get to the content of the meeting or of the bill, I want to read something from a blog Mary Ellen Sullivan contributes to called “Adventures in Local Food”. I want to read it because if there is any message I have tried to communicate during my time as a member of Parliament, it is that politicians are just members of our communities. We are not experts. We rely on the expertise of our communities. We want to talk to people and have our constituents shape our views on policy and legislation, even if we are going to disagree in the end. It is so important to be in touch, and I am always thankful when people do that.

On the blog, “Adventures in Local Food”, Ms. Sullivan wrote about our meeting. She wrote:

Our meeting was a relaxed exchange of information, questions and discussion, with [our MP] advising us of the position of the NDP and the workings of the political process. Because we received more than 25 signatures she can present our petition in Parliament!

It was a great learning and rewarding experience for Jonathan and me. [She] instilled confidence in us that grassroots actions such as petitions, demonstrations, and meeting with your MP do have an impact. Politicians do take note of these actions.

I found that the NFU website provided excellent educational and action resources including background information on C-18 and other issues--just use the search box for issues you’re interested in. It gives advocacy suggestions including how to meet with your MP, and information sheets that can be given to them. NFU works in collaboration with such organizations as the Canadian Biotechnology Action Network (CBAN) on issues affecting farmers and consumers.

Meeting with [our MP] was a great education for us and gave us confidence to continue to take food action! I was delighted to have Jonathan join me--a fledgling FAC member with two meetings under his belt, a background in biology, experience working on a farm in BC, and lots of knowledge and passion. Glad he decided to see what’s going on in NS. We hope you’d be inspired to meet with your MP too. Learn about the issue and relax--our MP’s are working for us.

That is pretty inspiring. I am really glad that Mary Ellen Sullivan took the time to lay out that it is not difficult, that people can meet with their MPs, and that we are working for them. Let us sit down and relax. She actually says “relax”. I thought that was a great message.

Let us move on to the content. As members heard from Ms. Sullivan, we talked about the issues in this bill, including an issue that was very important to them. This was probably the main issue they wanted to communicate to me, and it was about the ability to save seeds. Members heard my colleague from Timmins—James Bay go into this quite a bit.

When people come and meet with us, they want to explain their perspective on different issues. They also want to hear what our perspective is, and they want to know what our party will do. Is it going to support this bill? Is it going to vote against it? What are people saying about it? They asked me my position. I explained to them, as I will explain to the House now, that this bill is problematic. It is another omnibus piece of legislation that would make changes to nine different pieces of legislation. Looking at them and breaking down what these changes are, and they are extensive, there are some we do support. There are other parts that, on their face, we oppose and find problematic.

What do we do when we are faced with this kind of situation? What do we do when we like some parts but think that other parts would do damage?

I think that our critic, the member for Welland, and his deputy critic, the member for Berthier—Maskinongé, have put a lot of thought into this. They have consulted with stakeholders, and they have done an excellent job of dissecting all the points in this bill to bring them to a balanced conclusion.

My colleague from Malpeque posed a question to my colleague from Timmins—James Bay and asked what the solution is. He has great expertise in this area. He said that we are not sure where we are with farmer's privilege. How do we balance that? How do we figure out farmers' rights versus farmer's privilege? That is a great question to ask. We do not always have all of those answers when we are here at second reading just fleshing out the ideas of a bill. It is so important that we bring this to committee and study it, listen to experts, and maybe try to come up with those solutions. I do not have some of the solutions before me right now, but I am eager to hear from my colleagues what some of those solutions might be.

I told Ms. Sullivan and Mr. Kornelsen that I was prepared to support the bill at second reading and that at committee we plan to work on making the problematic aspects of this bill better. We plan to try to fix the problems. I have to admit that I am not overly optimistic that the Conservatives will listen to our proposal, but I refuse to be cynical about this and just give in. I do think we have to try.

What are the problematic aspects of this bill? I have received a number of postcards from constituents speaking out against the bill. In particular, I have received a lot of postcards from a postcard campaign on the issue of farmer's privilege. On the front of the postcard, it says:

Save our Seed

Stop Bill C-18! Farmers’ age-old practices of saving, reusing, exchanging, and selling seed are in jeopardy.

The postcard has some really compelling language in it. It says:

[The bill], now before the House of Commons, would allow the biggest seed companies in the world to exercise almost total control over seed in Canada. These companies would also be able to charge royalties on a farmer’s entire crop. The Bill includes power to make regulations that would quickly undo or severely limit the so-called “Farmers Privilege” to save seed. This means Canadian farmers would pay giant corporations hundreds of millions each year for the right to grow a crop.

Canadians do not want multinational seed and chemical companies like Bayer, Monsanto, DuPont, Dow and Syngenta to control our seed, and ultimately, our food system.

I am asking you, as my democratically elected representative, to safeguard Canadian farmers’ right to save, reuse, exchange and sell seed by taking all actions necessary to stop Bill C-18.

That is pretty passionate. They are not asking for a rewrite here; they are saying to stop.

I want to thank some of my constituents who have reached out to me on this, including Tessa Gold Smith, Jim Guild, Herb and Ruth Gamborg, Steve Burns, Aaron Eisses, Mark McKenna, Josh Smith, Elisabeth Gold and Peter Gravel. All these folks have signed onto this, saying that we should stop Bill C-18.

I sympathize with their demand to stop this bill, even though I will support it at second reading. This is one of these balancing acts that we have to play from time to time. When I sat down with Jonathan and Mary Ellen and said that there were some aspects of this bill that we would support, they asked me which parts.

I believe there are some pieces of this bill, like putting stronger controls for products that are being imported or exported. There are new strengthening of record keeping requirements, whether for plants, for feed or for fertilizer. There are some safety measures in there to prevent risks to human, animal and environmental health. One big part that everybody could support is prohibiting the sale of products that would be a subject of a recall order from the CFIA. That is a great step toward strengthening our food safety system. It makes me wonder why that has not been there all along.

It is a balancing act to figure it out, so we will try to get it to committee.

I agree with constituents of mine who have written to me in this postcard campaign about the farmers' privilege piece. I have two more letters that I received from some constituents about this issue.

One is from Margaret Murray who says:

No doubt you have done some investigation on Bill C-18. I'm wondering what the NDP issue is on this important issue. Multi-nationals like Monsanto MUST be curtailed in their attempts to 'own' what ought to be in the public domain. Taking a renewable common resource an turning it into a non-renewable patented commodity is simply wrong!

I have also heard from Cynthia O'Connell who asked me to oppose Bill C-18 as it would harm organic farmers on whom she depended for organic food.

Even though the bill is ostensibly about agriculture, it really would impact consumers, including consumers in urban centres like Halifax, which I represent. It is capturing the hearts and minds of people. They are writing to me.

As I said, there is a balance that has to be met here. There would be some benefits of the changes found in the bill, like enhancing public accessibility and transparency when it comes to plant breeding and, for example, protecting researchers from infringement of plant breeders' rights. However, the issue of farmers' privilege is significant, and that is the number one issue about which people have written to me.

Let us get to farmers' privilege and what the NDP would see as very problematic.

Farmers' privilege does not include the stocking of propagating material for any use. What does that mean? Even if farmers are able to save seed for the purpose of reproduction, it looks like they may have to pay to store it, which would effectively negate that privilege. Earlier, when I said that we did not necessarily have all the answers when we came here at second reading to debate the bill, I am very clear when I say it looks as if farmers would have to pay to store it. I would want to explore this issue and find out from the minister if that was actually the intention. If it is not the intention, then maybe that could be fixed with a simple wording change.

The farmers' privilege also would not extend to the sale of harvested material. This means that farmers would likely still be required to pay for the sale of the crops grown from farm-saved seed. It also means that plant breeders could potentially generate revenue on a farmer's entire production rather than just on the seed purchased to grow the crop. This could have significant impacts on the profit margins of farmers.

Some farmers say that paying a royalty base on what they produce instead of on the seed that they buy actually reduces their risk. If they harvest a poor crop, they pay less with an end-point royalty compared to paying upfront when they buy seed. Even in what I am presenting to the House right now, I am a bit unsure, so this is something we would need to explore further as well.

Bill C-18 includes amendments that would allow the CFIA to make changes to farmers' privileges through regulation, not through legislation, and that is an important distinction. This means that the government could significantly hinder these rights at any time without parliamentary oversight.

Not a lot of people understand the difference between regulation and legislation. Legislation would have to come before the House where we would debate it and vote on it. There is a process involved. Regulation is just an order-in-council. What does that mean? Effectively it means that the Prime Minister's Office has written something down and given notice, but it is not democratic. It is an interpretation of the legislation, and who knows where that comes from. In theory it is the Governor-in-Council, but in reality I doubt that is the case. There is no parliamentary oversight, and these rights could be changed at any time, at least that is my reading of the bill.

Allowing for farm saved seeds is an optional exemption under UPOV 091, the International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants that we signed in 1991. That means Canada could disallow farm saved seed and still fulfill its international obligations under the agreement.

Bill C-18 goes so far as to define what is meant by a document, so that is good because there is some detail there. However, it does not give a definition of farmer, which is problematic. This would have some important implications for the enforcement of farmer's privilege. It goes to the root of the issue here, especially given that Bill C-18 would allow the government to make significant changes to the farmer's privilege provisions through regulation. There we are again. Changes could actually be made, without any parliamentary oversight, through regulation, and there is no definition of what a farmer is.

Given the government's recent changes in Bill C-4 that limit farm loss deductions to people whose primary income is from farming, this is an area where more clarity is needed. Do I count as a farmer if I am participating in a community garden in downtown Halifax? I am not sure.

To prevent the privatization of existing varieties, we have to ensure a variety registration system that would ensure that new crop varieties would be as good or better than existing ones. We also have to ensure that farmers will continue to have access to existing cereal varieties that are developed by public plant breeders.

I will finish up with a couple of other concerns about the potential legal burden for producers.

The Canadian Federation of Agriculture has called for protections for producers from claims of patent infringement with respect to natural or accidental spreading of patented plant genetic material, but they are not included in Bill C-18.

Given that the expansion of breeders' rights under Bill C-18 would be so significant, it is likely that farmers would face increased and expensive litigation. There is no provision in the bill to ensure that legal fees do not impede farmers' defence in these cases.

That is the overview of what my constituents in downtown Halifax have written to me about. There are other issues in the bill which I am sure members will hear about from other members of Parliament, but that is the big one for the folks who I represent.

While I will be supporting this legislation at second reading, as I have pointed out, we have to watch this closely. We really have to push to change this, to make amendments to the bill to protect farmers. I look forward to being able to do that at committee.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased the New Democrats have not adjourned the House, or attempted to adjourn the House. That is a positive thing.

Next thing is that we have good pieces of legislation. When I say “good”, I should qualify that. This legislation attempts to make changes to nine other pieces of legislation. The government's track record in making changes to legislation that impacts our farmers is not very encouraging. In fact, there are many other things which the government could have done to work with a number of the changes that it would put into place through Bill C-18.

The member highlights that in certain areas there are some aspects of the legislation that are positive and I think would receive fairly decent support from our stakeholders, in particular, our farmers. We within the Liberal Party are very grateful for that. However, there are other aspects that are not.

The concern has to be that we have, yet again, this large bill before us that which would make change to several pieces of legislation.

Would the member not agree that it would have been far better off had the government done its homework and worked with our different communities and stakeholders to come up with what should have been several pieces of legislation? This way we probably would have had better and easier passage on some of the more positive aspects of Bill C-18.