Evidence of meeting #4 for Agriculture and Agri-Food in the 40th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was meeting.
A recording is available from Parliament.
12:30 p.m.
Conservative
Randy Hoback Conservative Prince Albert, SK
Thank you, Chair.
What I'm basically saying is there are political ties to these organizations. The NFU is widely known to be the agriculture branch of the NDP. So if you're going to play political favourites, then you have to—
12:30 p.m.
An hon. member
It doesn't serve anyone.
12:30 p.m.
Conservative
Randy Hoback Conservative Prince Albert, SK
Yes. What is it doing for this committee?
That's why Mr. Lemieux makes a good point. If we're going to give a half-hour to one, we have to give a half-hour to everyone, if we're going to thoroughly explore everybody's opinion on the topic. What we're doing now is getting a biased opinion from one organization that is tied to one member of the committee, and also tied to one political organization, and we're not giving a proper hearing to the rest of the witnesses.
I'm lost for words. Where's the motion?
12:30 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Larry Miller
Thank you.
I'm going to call the vote. All in favour of the motion?
12:30 p.m.
Conservative
12:30 p.m.
An hon. member
Mr. Chair--
12:30 p.m.
Conservative
Brian Storseth Conservative Westlock—St. Paul, AB
There is a factual inaccuracy in Mr. Hoback's statement. The NFU is not just the policy branch for the NDP, which it is definitely is, but also the policy branch for Mr. Easter. I think they should be more closely linked together. I just wanted to clarify that.
12:30 p.m.
Conservative
12:30 p.m.
Conservative
12:30 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Larry Miller
Okay. We've had a call for a recorded vote.
(Motion negatived: nays 6; yeas 5)
12:35 p.m.
Conservative
12:35 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Larry Miller
We can go to notices of motion in a second.
We have a letter, addressed to me, that I got as I was coming to our last meeting. It turned out to be a letter of invitation from the Canadian Grain Commission to visit their facility. That would mean travelling, of course. That's something the committee should be made aware of.
This is not to pre-empt the notice of motion Mr. Hoback has. Depending what happens, those two issues could be dealt with in the same breath, so to speak. As to what the committee wants to do with it, I'm at your direction, but we've had this invitation from them anyway.
There is a notice of motion.
12:35 p.m.
Conservative
Randy Hoback Conservative Prince Albert, SK
Mr. Chair, my notice of motion has to do with the financial statements that have come out in the last two weeks from the Canadian Wheat Board and the substantial hit they've taken in speculative trading. I think it's very important, since the farmers in western Canada are on the hook for this and have no options, that the committee investigate and explore what happened here and make sure it doesn't happen again.
My motion is that the committee travel to western Canada to meet with representatives of the Canadian Wheat Board and other professionals to investigate the CWB's substantial losses in commodity trades over the last two years, despite the windfall in crop prices.
12:35 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Larry Miller
Okay. Is there discussion on the motion?
We'll hear Mr. Storseth, then Mr. Easter.
12:35 p.m.
Conservative
Brian Storseth Conservative Westlock—St. Paul, AB
Mr. Chair, I have another notice of motion. You could come back after we're done with the discussion here.
12:35 p.m.
Liberal
Wayne Easter Liberal Malpeque, PE
Mr. Chair, I don't know whether we need to travel to Winnipeg or not. It would certainly do the Conservative members good to see an efficient grain operation of the Canadian Wheat Board that maximizes returns to primary producers.
I have no problem at all in inviting the Canadian Wheat Board before the committee to explain last year's financial year as outlined in the annual report. Both the minister and the parliamentary secretary to the minister misrepresented the facts around that report, both in the House and in correspondence. I believe the Canadian Wheat Board has responded to both in writing and has outlined the real facts.
The fact of the matter is that the Canadian Wheat Board maximized returns to primary producers, much better than the open market did in those countries that are under the open market. I think what we have here is an absolute success story. Yes, money was lent from the contingency fund, but that will likely be paid back over the next year—which is doing good business on behalf of primary producers.
So I would certainly welcome their appearance before this committee, but I do not believe, unless the Canadian Grain Commission.... If we're going to Winnipeg as a committee, I have no problem with doing the Canadian Wheat Board, the Canadian International Grains Institute—all of them, and Cargill Grain, for that matter, as well—all in a couple of days. But I think that if we're—
12:35 p.m.
Conservative
12:35 p.m.
Liberal
Wayne Easter Liberal Malpeque, PE
If we're dealing with this specific issue, though, the Canadian Wheat Board could be invited before this committee to deal with the specific issue. It's immaterial to me which way it's done.
12:35 p.m.
Conservative
12:35 p.m.
Conservative
Randy Hoback Conservative Prince Albert, SK
I appreciate Mr. Easter's comments. I'm glad to see that he's open-minded to explore this. I would remind him that Larry Hill, who is the chair of the Canadian Wheat Board, is also willing to explore it.
The reason I would like to see this done in western Canada, though, is that it gives an opportunity to farmers in western Canada to see how the committee works, how the structure works. I would suggest that it be a public meeting that farmers could attend. They can observe how the committee operates and, in addition, they can listen to the Wheat Board and other professionals explore this topic.
12:40 p.m.
NDP
Alex Atamanenko NDP British Columbia Southern Interior, BC
It's their money.
That's a fair proposal, Randy. I think what Wayne said is that if we're going there, it would be a really good opportunity for us to visit the commission, the research institute, and have a tour of the Wheat Board offices and see how they operate. I haven't been there for a long time, since I was an interpreter years ago, and I'd like to see what's happening there and somehow maybe tie this in. I think it's a good opportunity. It would just be a matter, obviously, of setting time aside and trying to fit that into a schedule, but yes.
