Mrs. Skelton.
Evidence of meeting #35 for Agriculture and Agri-Food in the 39th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was work.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Evidence of meeting #35 for Agriculture and Agri-Food in the 39th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was work.
A recording is available from Parliament.
9:35 a.m.
Conservative
Carol Skelton Conservative Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, SK
I've been listening to all the comments. I wasn't invited to the press conference, but that doesn't bother me, because I was at home working in the riding. When the Prime Minister and the minister talk about our Government of Canada, most citizens of Canada look at all of us as the Government of Canada. We're the parliamentarians. We're the ones who are doing the work. I know that everyone in my riding is looking at the agriculture committee and the report. I don't feel slighted. I think we're doing great work, and the people of Canada see that.
Every one of us sitting around this table is working for our constituents and for the agricultural community in Canada. I don't feel slighted. I'm glad that the Prime Minster looks at this issue as being serious for all Canadians. He will go forward after we put in this recommendation and look at it very seriously.
I don't know why we have to get into this discussion. I don't think it's political. We're moving ahead on something. We're not going to talk about it and wait for two months after the report comes in. We're going to move faster on it. We have to stop and look at it as a positive move.
I don't feel slighted about it. I wasn't there. I was working in the riding. I think that's how we have to look at it. We have to look positively at it and say thank God the government's doing something on our behalf. We're the ones who started it. We put the pressure on the minister and the Prime Minister. I think it's a very positive move.
May 27th, 2008 / 9:35 a.m.
Bloc
Ève-Mary Thaï Thi Lac Bloc Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC
For several weeks now, the committee has been examining product labelling. While Parliament was in recess and members were back in their ridings, the minister made an announcement. There is nothing unusual about that. The other committee that I serve on is currently looking into the problem of cigarette smuggling. Here again, the Prime Minister has made a number of announcements, even though the committee has not yet completed its study. This seems to be typical pattern of behaviour for the government.
I am a newly elected MP. When I meet with the local press, I am proud to speak to them about the committee's work. They question me about procedure and about when measures will be adopted. They report that I seem to have a lax approach because I am not up on my committee's work. I tell them what the normal procedure is, but the following week, the government comes out with an announcement. People then say that Mrs. Thi Lac takes a lax approach to her work. I'm not saying this because I am biased. I'm only saying that resorting to unusual tactics seems to be the norm for this government, because the same thing is happening in several committees. Last May, the two committees on which I serve had this happen to them.
Does the government plan to take a similar approach with every committee? Is the work of MPs destined to be rendered obsolete? As committee members, are we destined to serve nothing more than a decorative purpose? It's important to get an answer to that question. You maintain that this is good news for Canadians, but I want to know what purpose committees are serving then? We approve budgets to hear from witnesses. We have yet to hear from all of the witnesses and yet, the government is making announcements. It is important to follow standard committee procedure, that is to wait for our recommendations, out of respect for the work we do as parliamentarians, and also out of respect for the witnesses.
9:40 a.m.
Liberal
Ken Boshcoff Liberal Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
I feel very sorry for the government representatives having to try to defend this, because this committee has got along reasonably well. We've all, each and every one of us, taken our shots at Mr. Easter, and that's kind of held us together.
All that aside, it's hard not to believe that there's something else going on. In a committee that Mr. St. Amand and I are on, there was a very similar issue. We had proposed one thing in our report, through the course of many meetings on a national summit for forestry. Before the report was released—it hasn't been sent to Parliament yet—the Minister of Natural Resources announced a watered-down version of what we were proposing in our report. To me, this is very similar.
Considering we've been meeting since February on this, there are lots of other topics we could have done if this whole thing was going to be dealt with in this way.
Mr. Chairman, clearly the consultation process.... The dynamics of this are that the minister and the CFIA officials will meet with key stakeholders, farm groups, processors, retailers, and consumer groups. Well, who have we been inviting? Who have we been hearing as witnesses testifying to us?
If you ask me to give up my time from February to the end of May or early June to do something that, in a matter of a constituency break, a media release is going to subvert.... And look at the timeline. June 11 is the deadline, starting a couple of days ago. You've really got to ask what we were doing.
I think we have actually been meeting in quite good faith here. There has been a high degree of collegiality in terms of the way we conduct ourselves, and I have to agree with all the colleagues here that it's impossible not to assume that there is some hidden agenda and some trick has just been played on us for all our time.
9:40 a.m.
Conservative
Guy Lauzon Conservative Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON
I have to reassure Mr. Boshcoff that there is no secret agenda, no hidden agenda.
When you think about it, you're criticizing the government for taking action. Now, if we were to do this six months from now, everybody would be complaining that we were dragging our feet and all that. You know, let's face it: we've got a minister who is a man of action; we've got a Prime Minister who is a man of action. Whether the opposition wants to agree with that or not, I think they have a reputation for that.
The whole reason we're here is for the producer, for the agricultural people, right? You know what? They want this. The other interested people are the consumers. They want this. And I'm sure, when you went out into your ridings, you got exactly the same feedback as I got. The people we're here to represent want this, and so do the people who buy the product. Why are we complaining because the government takes action?
Mrs. Thi Lac, the government must take action. It is a responsible government.
And that's the problem. If we're the government—and we are the government—we have to take action. If anything, the government, the minister, and the Prime Minister should be commended.
Let's not let our personal egos get in the way here. We are going to have our input. Our input is here, if we can ever get this damn thing done and get it in to the minister. We'll make sure this is included in the final draft, and that's what it's about. But in the meantime, the people we're here to represent, the people who grow the product, are the ones who are the big winners. And we seem to be criticizing because the government took action to make our agricultural people the winners. That doesn't make any sense to me, not from an agricultural committee.
Thank you.
9:45 a.m.
Liberal
Lloyd St. Amand Liberal Brant, ON
Mr. Chair, I wonder if perhaps we, as a committee, could agree to issue a press release from all of us—this is our first meeting back since the Prime Minister's announcement—expressing our pleasure, as committee members, that the Prime Minister has seen fit to advance an issue the committee has been studying for a couple of months and to invite, for a second round of presentations, virtually the same people the committee has already seen fit to have present to us.
That would be a clear expression of the non-partisanship, the non-political bent to this, and I think frankly would be the appropriate way to go.
9:45 a.m.
Liberal
Wayne Easter Liberal Malpeque, PE
On the parliamentary secretary's points, this is not about taking action--we want to see action on this issue--but this is about the relevance of Parliament and committees. Somebody has to speak up some time--and we are--about this Prime Minister's attitude toward parliamentary democracy. That's what we're saying.
The Prime Minister didn't mention the work of this committee. Then he turned around and basically said “CFIA and the Minister of Agriculture will do the work, so we don't need to worry about the efforts of the committee and meet with the very same witnesses”. If I were a witness I'd ask why I bothered meeting with the standing committee.
This is not unusual coming from this Prime Minister, Parliamentary Secretary. We're seeing abuse of the relevance of Parliament with this issue. We see it on other committees, where government members are filibustering their work because the Prime Minister's Office doesn't agree with this or that. We've certainly seen it on the Wheat Board and other issues, where democracy and the rule of law have basically been supplanted by the attitude of the government itself.
It's not new, but it's not about action. It's about the relevance of Parliament and our work. I just want to make that point clear.
9:45 a.m.
Bloc
André Bellavance Bloc Richmond—Arthabaska, QC
Through his comments, the parliamentary secretary is proving exactly what others have criticized him for today.
I want to explain to you the difference between what would have been acceptable, and what is not acceptable. The Prime Minister chooses the backdrop for his announcements: an apple orchard, a bucolic scene with the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-food looking on. He could have said that the government firmly intends to change the 51% rule, that this was not the correct approach to product labelling, that the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-food has been examining this issue for several months and that the government would be weighing the committee's recommendations very carefully because the current policy was inadequate and consumers were not being properly informed.
Had he said nothing more than that, we would not be having this discussion. However, he used this as an opportunity to make a political announcement on behalf of the Conservative Party. It is all well and good for Ms. Skelton to say that we are all proud of the Prime Minister and that he represents everyone. I'm sorry, but he is the Leader of the Conservative Party. He realized that this initiative would be popular with the public and he turned the event into a political announcement. It is the exact same kind of announcement that is heard week after week during an election campaign. That is exactly what the Prime Minister chose to do. He gauged the mood of the public and decided to jump at this opportunity to trump the committee.
However, he did not say anything at all about the work that we have been doing for the past several months. Therefore, the announcement resembled an advertisement for the Conservative Party, which is responsible for doing good things and for taking action, just like the parliamentary secretary said. That's the key difference. What the committee is doing is really of no consequence, quite simply because the Prime Minister has grabbed the spotlight for himself. He seems to have made up his mind already about the policy that will be implemented. We can go ahead and table our recommendations, but I'm far from convinced that it will do any good. As I see it, it's a fait accompli.
9:50 a.m.
Conservative
Brian Storseth Conservative Westlock—St. Paul, AB
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Perhaps Mr. Atamanenko and Mr. Bellavance speak from the heart on this, but it's absolutely shameful the politics the Liberal Party of Canada is playing when they come here today and say “We can't believe you made an announcement without us”. But not five minutes after Mr. Easter saw it, he put out his own announcement taking credit for the entire measure and saying the Liberal Party would have got this done if they'd had three more days in office.
How are we supposed to move forward with some of these initiatives, Mr. Bellavance, when you take an example like biofuels? I haven't heard you criticize any of the witnesses who have come before us on that, but your own party doesn't support the initiative on biofuels. The opposition parties are back and forth on these things.
The Liberal Party supported it until it was time to get something done for farmers on biofuels, and now they're teetering on that as well. If the Government of Canada were to run the way the opposition parties do, we'd never have a decision made on anything. That's exactly what was done for 13 years. So I'm glad we have somebody who wants to stand up and get something accomplished for Canadian farmers.
On “Product of Canada” and what the Prime Minister and the minister announced, it's very clear that's exactly what all of our constituents want to see, so we got something accomplished. As a committee, we should be happy that we helped push that forward.
If you're hoping to get recognition for work of the Government of Canada, I don't think you'd run for the Bloc Québécois.
9:50 a.m.
Conservative
Guy Lauzon Conservative Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON
Thank you very much.
I wasn't going to make any new comments today. We seem to be going around in a vicious circle here. Mr. Easter talked about this committee and other committees. If we continue to split hairs, we're going to end up like other committees. It's not the big issues that you get hung up on; it's the little issues. We have to rise above this partisanship. When we have good news, gentlemen and ladies, why don't we take advantage of that fact?
I go back to the question, why are we here? We're here for the producer. For every one of us, if we look each other in the eye, that's why we're supposed to be here. Why are we playing with certain semantics about what the Prime Minister said, or suggesting “He announced it, and I wasn't there in the picture”, and this and that? What the hell has that got to do...? Can you imagine having to explain to one of your farmers that “I wasn't there in that photo op, and that's not right, and that's why I opposed this”? To me, that's not what we're here for. We're here to advance the cause of the farmer.
We have farmers who, by your own admission, are losing their farms, and here we are trying to split hairs. Mr. Bellavance doesn't think the Prime Minister should make the announcement. Well, who the hell should make it, the leader of the Bloc? The Prime Minister of this country has the right to make the announcements regarding the direction the government's going to go in, and I think it just makes sense that the agriculture minister should be there, not a representative from the Bloc. That's the government.
How can the Bloc say the Prime Minister doesn't have a right to make an announcement to help a farmer? You people sit on this committee, you go into the House of Commons, and you say you support the farmers, but you don't want good news being told to farmers? You don't want to move forward with good news?
Where are we coming from? We're supposed to be here for the farmers. What are we doing discussing this? It just doesn't make any sense.
Let's move on with this and let's get going with what we're supposed to be here for: to help the farmer.
Thank you.
9:50 a.m.
Liberal
Ken Boshcoff Liberal Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON
Mr. Chair, in our committee work, timing is everything. We're only a week or so away from presenting this to Parliament. We've been doing this since February. The government members seem to be trying to distort our intent here. I haven't heard anybody here say anything different from there needing to be respect for the work of the committee.
I'm trying to be patient here. Maybe you've been told to spin it one way, that this is good news, but the bottom line is that we've all been working in common cause for this. If this isn't subverting our work, why would it not have been held off until you, as chair, presented the report after we've gone through it on Thursday or whenever? To me, the media announcement would have had much more credibility in saying that the Prime Minister is going to act on the recommendations of the report to Parliament.
To me it is a question of sincerity, and the fact that you people won't understand what we're trying to say.... We've been working on this since February. If it were so simple that we could have done a two-pager, why didn't we just do that in February and have the Minister of Agriculture phone these people up and say we've contacted all these people and they all agree we should raise the percentage?
This report is much more comprehensive than that, and the work is much more comprehensive than that. I really was quite into it, and I know all the witnesses really felt they were contributing to some significant change in direction and improvement in the country. I thought the committee work was refreshingly absent of partisanship and that we were getting somewhere. This, I think, completely takes all of this report and says: “We will continue to operate without you; it's nice to have you, but don't bother.” I find that shameful.
Thank you, Chair.
9:55 a.m.
NDP
Alex Atamanenko NDP British Columbia Southern Interior, BC
I just wanted to make a couple of points here. This is not about photo ops, not about splitting hairs. It's not about not supporting farmers or playing politics. The Prime Minister's announcement.... Yes, he is the Prime Minister of our country, and I respect him for that. What I have a problem with and what I don't understand is the way it was done. There is a democratic process. We're representatives of the people. We have an all-party committee that's working on a very important topic: we're going to be changing the way we look at “Product of Canada” labelling.
I don't understand why this committee.... It just appears in the announcement as if the work this committee is doing was not respected. There was no mention of the committee. There was nothing saying “I look forward to the report of the committee, thanks to the witnesses who were here, and let's move forward. As Prime Minister, I'm going to give priority to the hard work.”
It's not that we just want to get credit for it. I don't even know if I really feel like coming back to work on this thing, because I think the work has been done. That's how I feel. I'm not playing politics when I say that. I just wonder what the point is.
It's not only us. The work that has been done here to put this together, the research that has been done to give us this briefing, why are we going through it? If everything is done over there, let's just give it to them and go on. We've got other important issues to deal with in the next couple of weeks we're here. Let's get on with it. To me there's something that just doesn't make any sense here.
That's the point I want to make. It's not so much that we should all be getting credit for this. It's the fact that I don't think a democratic process has been respected.
9:55 a.m.
Liberal
Paul Steckle Liberal Huron—Bruce, ON
I don't want to prolong this debate, but I think a number of things should be clear. I don't think anyone on this side believes that the Prime Minister or the Minister of Agriculture shouldn't be making announcements.
There are two things that caused me to raise this issue this morning. One is the very fact that there was no recognition of the committee's work and that there is ongoing work being done by the committee. The other is the fact that he suggested there be another 21 days of hearings. He could have said “The committee is going on with its work. I believe there's more work to be done, and I would advise them that they should go back and see a few more people and bring forward a full and comprehensive view of what hasn't been heard yet.”
Nothing was said to that effect. It's a fait accompli. If you read the transcripts of what he said, both in the main statement and in the following statement, it was a fait accompli. The deal was made over there. For us not to be invited to be there is not a problem. I mean, I go through that all the time. I had a phone call on Saturday evening that I wasn't being invited to a certain event that was taking place. People from the riding thought I should be, but they were told by the government that I'm not a government member and therefore I have no right to be there. This is my riding. This is the way this government operates.
So this is not new. We've become used to this. We don't like it, but that's the way you people operate. So this is just another way of expressing to us that really what we do over here is not very important.
Larry, you know what I'm talking about. I've had this discussion with a number of you people over there, and that's the way you people operate.
10 a.m.
Conservative
Brian Storseth Conservative Westlock—St. Paul, AB
That's utterly shameless. My former member never got.... In the west, it was always Anne McLellan in Alberta who went and did all the announcements. It's the way governments operate. Your government operated that way for 13 years, Paul. I never heard you complain about that once.