Agriculture Committee on May 29th, 2007

[Paul Steckle, Liberal, Huron—Bruce, ON]

In order to do that, Mr. Chair, I was proposing to put the question to Mr. Anderson's motion. If that vote fails, then I would put the question on the second motion.

The motion is to hear Mr. Anderson's motion.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

We will deal with this motion and see what the outcome is.

Then you can move the second motion.

[Paul Steckle, Liberal, Huron—Bruce, ON]

The question has been put on Mr. Anderson's motion.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

I'm not seeing any speakers.

Mr. Miller.

[Larry Miller, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

Mr. Chairman, going back to some of Mr. Easter's comments earlier, it's been pointed out by Mr. Hubbard and a few others that we are in a minority government situation. Canada has had them before. At the same time, the ministers of the day over the years have in previous governments, including this one, made decisions from time to time. They make those decisions based on consultation with their groups. Sometimes programs come in and they take flak over them. The minister obviously, with the farm options program, was responding to that kind of feedback—including feedback from every member around this table; that needs to be noted. So I think there's a lot to be said on this. I'm just touching on some of the points I have a problem with in this motion of Mr. Easter.

Let's get on with the APF, as everybody seems to say they want to do, and we will get something done for the good of agriculture. We can beat around this all we want, but we all know that the most important work we could all be doing right now is dealing with this report on the APF.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

I have nobody else on the speaker's list, so we'll call the question. We know what the motion is.

All in favour of Mr. Anderson's motion to change the order of business to deal with the APF—that the committee conclude its report on the APF before studying the motions on the agenda—please signify.

(Motion negatived)

[Paul Steckle, Liberal, Huron—Bruce, ON]

How about the second question?

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Mr. Steckle is putting forward a motion, meaning that we—

[Paul Steckle, Liberal, Huron—Bruce, ON]

The motion would be that we stand the last two motions and come to the conclusion of our APF; that we deal with these first two now and then proceed directly to the APF.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Okay. The motion is that we deal with the motions from Mr. Easter and Mr. Atamanenko and conclude the APF report before dealing with any other business, including the two motions that we have—

[Paul Steckle, Liberal, Huron—Bruce, ON]

Nothing would come before the chair until that work is done.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

So the motions from Mr. Boshcoff and Mr. Bellavance would be set aside until after the APF report is concluded, and then we'd move back to business.

Are there any speakers?

Mr. Anderson.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Obviously, Mr. Chair, we're not prepared to support this, and for many of the reasons that we've given already. We think it's important that we get to the APF immediately. It's been clear since the beginning of the meeting that the first two motions were not going to be supported by us. We've already had some vigorous debate on it, and we're going to debate them further.

I want to point out that I think the member is making a mistake by bringing forward this motion and not having supported the last one. Clearly, we want to begin to move forward on the APF; we want to bring the report forward and get that done for farmers.

As I pointed out previously, we've spent probably seven or eight months now trying to encourage the opposition to focus on the APF report, and at virtually every opportunity they've stirred away from it into other issues. We tried to get them to focus on it in November and December; however, there were a number of issues that they were bringing forward at that time, so we didn't get to the hearings at that time. Four or five months ago, we also brought this up and talked about the urgency of bringing the report forward as soon as possible. They again have chosen to throw roadblocks in the way of it.

We've now had our hearings. The only thing that's standing between us and getting this done is to go through the report, and it would certainly help if they would take, as Alex called them, the two critical motions off the table so that we can get to the report immediately. The sooner we get to it, of course the sooner we can get it done and get it into the hands of farmers, who will be glad to see some of the recommendations there, I think.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Mr. Easter.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

I have a last point that I have to make because of what the parliamentary secretary said, which is not accurate. The fact of the matter is that we've all been very cooperative at this committee in terms of trying to get work done. If you go back to when the government first came in, we were extremely cooperative in terms of getting the Advance Payments for Crops Act through, practically just by motion, so that could get out there and money could get into the hands of the farm community. I think the committee worked reasonably well on the Canada Grain Commission, getting that report done and up and going.

We do differ from the government on the Canadian Wheat Board issue. There's no question about that. For the parliamentary secretary to suggest basically that when anybody differs with the government's position those issues shouldn't be debated is about as ridiculous as you get. We felt it necessary to debate the Canadian Wheat Board issue and we did hold hearings. I'd keep in mind, Mr. Chair, that we haven't dealt with that report either, and that report is written in draft. We could, if we wanted to be forceful, say that we should complete that report before we get to APF, but we're not. I'm suggesting we stand that aside. It is an important report; we held a lot of hearings and a lot of witnesses came forward. That's an important issue too.

For the parliamentary secretary to try to lay the blame on the opposition for our not being near completion on the APF is unfair and not quite accurate. The fact of the matter is, we put a motion in the House for the committee to travel. I think you would have to agree, Mr. Chair, that the motion went through faster than probably most committees get moneys to travel, with strong support from us. We wanted to get that done. I think it just stands to reason that we have a good compromise here--deal with two motions, do the APF, get it done, and then go to the other motions eventually.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Mr. Miller.

[Larry Miller, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

Thanks, Mr. Chairman.

Again, I can't support this. I do very much appreciate the compromise that's taken by a couple of our members around the table, and I think it needs to be pointed out that it's unfortunate that not everyone is willing to compromise. The bottom line here goes back to what's the most important work that could be on our agenda today, and that's this APF.

As Mr. Steckle and others have pointed out, the travel we did around the country, which was a gruelling trip but very rewarding, for me anyway, in what I learned, and I think for every other member, to see some of the things affecting agriculture across the country.... It's important for us all to see it. Those things are still relatively fresh in our minds, and I think it's time to get on with that. We'll get to these motions, but let's prioritize. That's what this initial motion that's now defeated was requesting, and I don't think we should vary from that.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Mr. Anderson.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

I just want to mention a couple of comments that Mr. Easter made.

I think it's not a question of debating the issues, because we've certainly done that. It's been a question of priorities. It's been a priority of our government to try to get this APF organized and get it in place, and it's been a priority for us on this side of the committee table to try to get the committee out and to do these hearings as soon as possible. That could have been done six months ago.

One of the reasons travel was approved so quickly is because we were so late in the season we were able to convince the people who need to be convinced that we had to get out and get this done or it would have been too late. Here we are again, sitting in a situation where we are going to have some delays because the opposition doesn't want to deal directly with this today. We think it's important that we go right to the APF report and work our way through it. We probably could have been, what, five pages into it by now if we'd just passed the motion at the beginning of the meeting. I don't think we're the ones who can be blamed for holding this up. We brought what I think is a reasonable solution to the issue, and unfortunately it seems that the opposition doesn't have an interest in that solution. I just want to make those points.

Mr. Easter is right. We've talked about other issues at length, but the problem has been that they've become a priority, ahead of the APF, for the opposition, and that's been a concern to us for quite some time.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Mr. Bellavance.

[André Bellavance, Bloc, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

It is wrong to say that the opposition refuses to discuss the report. I can even prove it. I had annotated most pages of the report and I was prepared to work on that from today forward. The government is filibustering. It is targeting a motion that was tabled a long time ago and which we have had ample time to discuss. The members of the opposition whom, I would point out to you, constitute a majority, have compromised. In order to speed things up, they decided that it would be a good idea to deal with two motions that were tabled a long time ago. The way to deal with them is to wrap up the debate and move to a vote. We have always worked in that way.

The parliamentary secretary has the right to filibuster. We have seen that often. He has the right to do so, but he should not come and say that it is the opposition's fault because they do not want to discuss something else. He is the one who decided to discuss the issue at length. We must be very careful what we say. The compromise we made appears perfectly acceptable to me. It is a question of dealing with two motions in order to move as quickly as possible to deal with the report.

I would also like to bring to the attention of the committee the fact that the government has carried out its own consultations. They have a draft report that will potentially become the national agriculture policy. This trip meant complementary work that the committee decided to carry out. I am not saying that it was not useful or important, but the fact remains that many of these aspects will match up. The people we heard from in Montmagny, in Quebec, also went to Saint-Hyacinthe to say what they had to say during the government's consultations. All will not be lost, even if we decide to not study this right away, but I don't believe that setting aside this work is the answer. We did not do all of this for nothing.

As far as the agricultural policy framework is concerned, I believe that the committee has a contribution to make, but the parliamentary secretary will have to accept that we vote on these motions and that we do our job.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Okay.

We have a motion from Mr. Steckle on the floor, that we set aside the motions from Mr. Boshcoff and Mr. Bellavance until after the APF report.

All those in favour, please signify.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

I think you need to be clearer on the motion, Mr. Chair: that we set aside those two until after the APF report but that we deal with the other two first. That's the compromise.

[Paul Steckle, Liberal, Huron—Bruce, ON]

We're going to be dealing with the two by Mr. Atamanenko and Mr. Easter today. After we've concluded that, we will move directly to APF and stay on APF—absolutely APF only—until we have concluded that work. Then we will proceed directly back to the two motions that are before us.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

The way we have it worded here is that the motions from Mr. Boshcoff and Mr. Bellavance are set aside until the committee concludes the report on APF. Is that clear?