Agriculture Committee on April 21st, 2009

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

In the interest of time, I'll leave mine until the next meeting. It's not pressing.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Yours is the third one on the list anyway.

Mr. Lemieux.

[Pierre Lemieux, Conservative, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

I want to comment on Mr. Bellavance's concerns. I think it's important that we end at one o'clock. I'm a member of the committee and would like to be here if the meeting goes longer, but I can't. I have to leave at one at the latest. At an earlier meeting I had to leave at one, but the meeting went on, and that's not fair to me. I'm a sitting member on this committee. We all have our schedules and we know it ends at one.

If we want the meeting to start at 11 o'clock, we have to make sure we have quorum. It's not the chair's fault if the meeting starts late; if there's quorum, the meeting starts. But I think we have to stick with the end timing, because it allows each of us to respect our schedules. As members who participate in the committee every meeting, I think it's fair that we be here, especially if we're going to be discussing motions, reports, and committee business. That's just being fair to all members and their schedules. As Mr. Bellavance knows--I'm sure his schedule is as full as mine--these schedules get filled up well in advance, and it is hard to change them at the absolute last minute.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Thank you.

Mr. Atamanenko's motion is the first one on the agenda.

Mr. Atamanenko, please read it into the record.

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

Thank you. I'll be very brief.

I move that the committee undertake a study that assesses the economic impacts on conventional and organic producers of the release into the environment of genetically modified--GM--alfalfa prior to commercialization via variety registration of Monsanto's GM Roundup Ready alfalfa, which has already received environmental and health approvals.

Basically my motion is saying that we should study very carefully and do an assessment of the economic impacts of this, specifically on organic farmers, with the ability of alfalfa to contaminate when it is used by organic producers as a fertilizer. This would also conform to the United States. They are upholding a nationwide ban on the planting of genetically modified Roundup Ready alfalfa pending a full environmental impact statement. So I'm asking that we do the same thing in Canada. Before we allow this to happen, we would undertake this study to assess the economic impacts of this, specifically on our organic farmers.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Thank you, Mr. Atamanenko.

Is there further discussion on the motion?

Mr. Lemieux.

[Pierre Lemieux, Conservative, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Mr. Chair, I'll raise a concern about motions. It's not so much about this specific motion; it's about tabling a motion that deals with the committee agenda and committee business without working with the subcommittee, which is the committee we have to help set the agenda. All sorts of questions follow from this. For example, when, how long, how many meetings, who would the witnesses be, what's the impact on the work we're doing right now, how does this conflict with possibly any other reports we want to table, and are we talking about a report coming out of this? There are a lot of questions, and it takes time to discuss all that, which is, I think, one of the reasons we established a steering committee on agenda.

The idea is that the four key players come together, they have time to discuss this, and they put together a draft plan for the committee. It's going to come to committee anyway, but the point is that a lot of this has been discussed. We each have our meetings outside of this committee as well. Information gets shared at that level. We have time to digest it and see what the impact is on the whole committee so that when we do discuss it at committee, we actually have answers closer to our fingertips. I won't say that they're always at our fingertips, but they are closer to our fingertips.

I would ask whether Mr. Atamanenko would mind submitting this to the steering committee. Let the steering committee flesh it out and determine what's involved in this kind of study, where it might go, and what kinds of results we're looking for. Let the steering committee put together its report. The report would come to the main committee, and then the main committee can react.

We have a steering committee, and it's kind of half there and half not there. It depends on how we want to do business on any given day. I'd prefer to see it start there so that they can flesh it out. They can actually present this type of idea to the committee in context, not out of context. Right now, it's kind of out of context. What's the launch on this? Aren't we involved in other studies right now? Don't we have other witnesses coming? I don't have the full agenda in front of me or the full committee schedule in front of me.

That would be my recommendation.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

I don't have the actual full schedule in front of me. As to the steering committee, I think it's been traditional here that it's used on an as-needed basis. We can have one at any time.

As to the schedule, the way I would take it and the way the clerk and I would work is that any direction from the committee as far as further studies go would go to the bottom of the list, if I could use that term. We do have a number of things right now. I think we're getting close to or are in the middle of the competitiveness study. The next one on the list--and this was decided by the steering committee and the committee as a whole--is the competition one. That's due to start, I believe, in the next two weeks.

Any new issues we get, I believe, will probably be pushed to get in before the break.

[Pierre Lemieux, Conservative, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Can I follow up on that comment? I'm not sure if there's anyone else on the speaking list.

Chair, you're saying that if a motion like this gets tabled and passed, it just goes to the bottom of the list.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Unless we're further directed to--

[Pierre Lemieux, Conservative, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Yes, but to me, the steering committee has to put this in context; otherwise we get one motion at a time and they keep going to the bottom of the list. There might actually be a higher priority one that's lower on the list because it comes out at the next meeting or two meetings from now. To me, one of the fundamental responsibilities of the steering committee is to look, from a high-level view, at what the committee work is, where we are in the work on some of our studies, whether it should go to the very bottom of the pack, whether it should even be in the pack, or whether it will be supplanted by another idea, because the steering committee is reviewing a whole bunch of agenda ideas.

That's where I'm coming from, Chair. I'm not in favour of a motion just landing on the table and then going to the bottom of the pile. Again, it's not in context. It just gets moved there. Maybe it shouldn't be there.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

You're suggesting that we go to the subcommittee.

[Pierre Lemieux, Conservative, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

We go to the steering committee, yes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Before I come to you, Mr. Eyking, I'll let Mr. Atamanenko comment on that point, because he did raise the motion.

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

Since we have all these great minds around the table, and because I believe very strongly in this motion, I would like to get a blessing from this committee. What I'm suggesting is that once it goes to the steering committee we could make recommendations as to its order on the agenda.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Thank you.

Go ahead, Mr. Eyking.

[Mark Eyking, Liberal, Sydney—Victoria, NS]

I think the intent of the motion is good. This committee has to start looking to the future of agricultural products, whether they are organic or GMO products. I agree with Pierre that this is something the steering committee should look at, and maybe we should have witnesses come. It may take a couple of meetings. It might set the table for where we're going in the fall session. I think it's timely. It should be looked at, whether it's organic or GMO foods. How are we going to do this on Canadian farms? How are we going to produce them?

Whether it's documented or goes forward, I think it has to be put in the queue, and then the steering committee should deal with it from there.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

I certainly have no problem having a steering committee meeting at any time. I take that direction from the committee as a whole. If there's no further discussion, we do have a motion on the table. Mr. Atamanenko has indicated he wants to leave it as is.

(Motion negatived)

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Mr. Bellavance, do you want to read your motion into the record?

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

Yes, thank you.

I will be brief, since we have already had the opportunity to hear from the potato producers from Saint-Amable. In fact, they came before the committee to speak about their particular circumstances. The intention behind the motion is simply to suggest to the committee—and this could be in the form of a committee report—to ask the federal government to provide potato producers with long-term assistance.

We know that they received some assistance in 2006, but that it was insufficient. However, in the long term, given that those people will no longer be able to use their lands to produce potatoes because of the golden nematode, it would be important to establish an assistance package. Simply put, we would state that the committee has examined the golden nematode issue, which is affecting the Saint-Amable region in Quebec.

The motion would read as follows:

That the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food report to the House of Commons as soon as possible the following recommendations: 1. The federal government renegotiate with the Government of Quebec payment of the requested financial assistance of $24 million, representing less than 80% of estimated costs of $30.7 million for a ten-year transition plan.

I must add that this funding is shared between Quebec and the federal government, since producers themselves are ready to inject 20% of their own funds into the stimulus plan. The motion goes on to say:

2. That since in her report of December 2008 the Auditor General noted that the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) faces a number of challenges in assessing the risks posed by invasive plants, pests and diseases, the committee recommend that the CFIA make available its action plans and timelines for solving the problems in this case. 3. That pursuant to Standing Order 109, the committee request that the government table a comprehensive response to this report.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

We've had the motion read into the books. It is one o'clock. I do have to go. I don't know how much discussion there's going to be on this.

[Brian Storseth, Conservative, Westlock—St. Paul, AB]

I have a point of order, Mr. Chairman.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Is yours a point of order, Mr. Bellavance?

[Brian Storseth, Conservative, Westlock—St. Paul, AB]

I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

He had his hand up first, and if it's on a point of order, I'll take him first.