Agriculture Committee on Dec. 12th, 2007

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Ms. Skelton.

[Carol Skelton, Conservative, Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, SK]

I would just like to ask Mr. Atamanenko what changes were made during that election?

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Alex.

[Alex Atamanenko, NDP, British Columbia Southern Interior, BC]

There were certain changes with regard to who was eligible to vote in directors' elections, and mailings had to be sent out to clarify certain changes. There were others. I don't have them in front of me, but there were a number of them, and costs were incurred. That's the main point.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Mr. Anderson.

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

Again, this is ridiculous. If people are going to bring motions forward, they should understand that the voters lists that were reduced actually reduced the expenses of the board. There may have been additional costs for sending out some mailings, but there certainly were savings made, because they didn't have to send out packages to the people who were taken off the list.

So I would suggest that if Mr. Atamanenko could tell us how much those extra costs were, we could take a look at them. But again, he has brought a motion forward here. There may or may not have been extra costs. This actually might have been a savings to them. Nobody knows. There certainly has been no study or work done on this to indicate there were extra costs. We're to vote on a motion when he doesn't know what the costs were and doesn't even know what all the changes were.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Mr. Atamanenko, do you want to respond?

[Alex Atamanenko, NDP, British Columbia Southern Interior, BC]

If there were not costs, and the motion is passed, it would probably be irrelevant, right? Let's have the motion and let's investigate. If the costs were there, let's reimburse them. That's all.

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

Did he ask that we should investigate the costs? Was that what he said?

[Alex Atamanenko, NDP, British Columbia Southern Interior, BC]

No.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Mr. Miller.

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

Of course, I'm opposed to this. This motion is even more ridiculous than the previous one, but I'll give you one example of some of the mix-ups that were in the vote that's referred to.

A guy from Saskatchewan and his wife both owned separate properties. The man told me this last January. His wife leased her land to another active wheat farmer. The husband also leased his land to another farmer. So there were leases to two different farmers. The husband was ruled ineligible to vote, but the wife was still eligible. He said this example only touched the tip of it. He was actually a supporter of the Wheat Board; she was not. What he said at the end of the day was that the voting was so mixed up and out of place that there were thousands of people who actually voted who shouldn't have. That was even after some of the changes were made to try to correct that problem. Probably the thing didn't go far enough, but certainly there appeared to be a lot of ineligible voters beforehand, people who hadn't actually farmed for 30 years but were still called wheat producers.

So I'm opposed to the motion, Mr. Chairman.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Mr. Lauzon.

[Guy Lauzon, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON]

I think this is another open-ended motion, with all due respect.

This committee is here to make good, sound recommendations, responsible recommendations, to the government, and I don't feel comfortable making a recommendation with an open-ended amount.

This amount, in relative terms, is probably going to be insignificant, but do you have any idea of how much it might be? I ask this question just as I asked it about any other motion. Do you have any idea of the number we might be talking about?

[Alex Atamanenko, NDP, British Columbia Southern Interior, BC]

No.

[Guy Lauzon, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON]

I don't feel comfortable supporting it.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Mr. Easter.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Thanks, Mr. Chair.

I guess we're again back to the principle of a government subverting democracy and causing extra costs to the Canadian Wheat Board. I think it should be understood that all those costs the Canadian Wheat Board endures are borne by primary producers. The extra costs incurred by producers are as a result of the government's action, so in any normal circumstance, the Government of Canada should compensate the board, or, in this instance, as it says, producers, for those extra costs that have been caused. The facts are clear.

There was a balloting process started. Some people were informed that they would be able to vote. Their package never came in the mail because the Government of Canada, the Minister of Agriculture, basically changed the process on the list partway through the process. So there's no question in our mind. There are extra costs borne by western producers as a result of government actions, because they are responsible for the costs of the board.

So I support this motion. It only makes sense that when the government is responsible for increasing farmers' costs, subverting democracy, as they've done in this case, the Government of Canada, and not western primary producers, should bear those costs.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

There's nobody else on my speakers' list.

[Guy Lauzon, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON]

Can you call the question?

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

We're ready for the question.

(Motion agreed to)

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

The next motion is Mrs. Skelton's.

[Carol Skelton, Conservative, Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, SK]

I brought forward this motion on Monday, Mr. Chair, and it was the following:

That the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food condemn the message in the calendar produced by the Kerrobert Credit Union and ask Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada to investigate how this calendar was funded and if any other Credit Unions are using a similar template for their calendars.

I was very concerned because this calendar, on one page, gave the advice to eat a meatless meal once a week in order to help the environment. I felt that this was both misleading and based on false or oversimplified information. This sidebar includes a glaring error by stating that it takes 2,200 litres of water just to make a quarter pound of hamburger. This figure is a misreporting of a discredited U.S. figure of 2,200 gallons claimed by an unqualified author over 15 years ago. The correct Canadian figure at this time is 15 litres of water or 3.3 Canadian gallons. And it's certainly less today given the advancements in animal husbandry methods and technology.

Now since that time, I have gone forward and I have talked to credit unions in Saskatchewan. This Credit Union Central of Canada sends out calendars every year to credit unions in Canada, and the credit unions can pick which calendar they want.

There were some credit unions that picked this calendar, not realizing that it was in there. I was very concerned a couple of weeks ago when we heard from witnesses who came to testify that they worked with credit unions or with cooperatives, and I wanted to make sure the Government of Canada wasn't paying for this false information that went out.

I talked to the credit union manager. Immediately when they discovered this, they pulled the calendars from their credit union. That made me feel very much better, but I have grave concerns that this was done. I think we should be supporting our meat producers in this country and agriculture right across this country, because they are the true environmentalists.

I understand Mr. Lauzon has an amendment to this motion.

[Guy Lauzon, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON]

Yes. If Mrs. Skelton would agree to a friendly amendment, I think we can go even a little further and make the amendment that the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food send a letter to the Credit Union Central of Canada expressing its displeasure with the template calendar that they have distributed with an anti-farming message on it. I would seek unanimous consent to do that.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

You're just moving an amendment. We can't take a friendly amendment. You're moving an amendment to Carol's motion.

Do we have a copy of that?