Evidence of meeting #40 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 chair.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Pierre Lemieux Conservative Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON
Yes, on the same point of order, Chair, I'm not tabling the motion, but I believe Mr. Richards is making a comment. He's not debating the motion; he's making a comment, and you recognized him to make a comment. He hasn't even gotten into the comment he's making. He should be able to proceed.
Conservative
Blake Richards Conservative Wild Rose, AB
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I just want to make sure...there are one or two people who haven't--
Bloc
France Bonsant Bloc Compton—Stanstead, QC
Point of order. I want to ask the clerk what happens when Mr. Lemieux withdraws his motion. Do we debate it anyways, do we comment on it, or is it simply done?
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Larry Miller
Madame Bonsant, we're not debating any motion.
I recognize people from time to time when they want to comment on something. He hasn't even gotten to a point where I can make a judgment on what he's going to talk about, and if you would leave that with me, I will deal with it.
If we could have some order....
Mr. Richards.
Conservative
Blake Richards Conservative Wild Rose, AB
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
I think all the opposition members have had a chance to make their points of order, and they've certainly shown that this is a topic they don't want to discuss. The reason they don't want to discuss this is because they're on the wrong side of farmers on this one, Mr. Chairman. That's why I feel this needs to be brought up, and certainly I think the opposition needs to be aware that farmers in this country want to see this bill supported.
I wanted to put on the record an op-ed piece from the Castlegar News, from Mr. Atamanenko's riding, and just share that with the committee and share that with farmers across this country--
Alex Atamanenko NDP British Columbia Southern Interior, BC
You're full of crap! If you want to come and talk to me outside, let's do it. Putting this garbage on there is ridiculous. You go ahead. I'm out of here. I'm not taking part in this committee when you're going to have that kind of crap going on in here. I've had it.
Blake, I've had it with you and I've had it with that crap. The gun registry here has nothing to do with agriculture. I have three rifles. They're registered. Nothing happens to me. Any farmer can go out and have a gun--
Conservative
NDP
Alex Atamanenko NDP British Columbia Southern Interior, BC
I'll go and talk to them. You have nothing to do with what's going on in my--
Conservative
Randy Hoback Conservative Prince Albert, SK
They'll kick you out of the hall. You start representing your true farmers the way they should--
Conservative
Blake Richards Conservative Wild Rose, AB
Now that Mr. Atamanenko has done his tirade, I want to make the point that this does in fact protect farmers, and Mr. Atamanenko is dead wrong if he is going to claim that it doesn't.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Larry Miller
Order.
If this is about a specific op-ed, I'm going to suggest, Mr. Richards, that you table that for the committee.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Larry Miller
Okay.
We'll move on to Mr. Lemieux.
You have another motion. How do you wish to proceed?
Conservative
Pierre Lemieux Conservative Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON
I'd like to table this motion, Chair: that the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food, after hearing witness testimony concerning specified risk material, would like to encourage the government to work with industry to find solutions to existing irritants.
Chair, we had witnesses come in front of us explaining the challenges that exist in the industry and that the definition of specified risk material actually has an impact on their sector, and I feel that with this motion we are encouraging the government to work with the industry to find solutions that will help them with SRMs. So I think it's something that every member on the committee should be able to support.
Conservative
Liberal
Wayne Easter Liberal Malpeque, PE
Mr. Chair, I really think the motion should be amended.
Let me make a couple of points. I think the motion is well intended, but it seems to me that it's more to leave the impression that we're encouraging the government to do something it has already had sound recommendations on and has ignored. I'll just make these points, Mr. Chair.
When we held hearings--this was two years ago in September, October, November, and December 2007 in the 39th Parliament, second session. Out of those hearings we came up with a report on the beef and pork sector income crisis, and we reported it.... James Bezan was chair.
There were two recommendations that I want to refer to. One was recommendation 6:
The Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food recommends that Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada review program funding available to beef producers, processors and renderers to help them with the disposal and storage costs of ruminant specified risk material....
Basically, that recommendation is much like the motion the parliamentary secretary is putting forward. It was based on the preamble, and I'll quote from the report. It said, after recommendation 5 and before recommendation 6:
Finally, it has come to the Standing Committee’s attention that government officials may have underestimated the cost burden associated with the specified risk material ban compliance for meat processors. Although a joint provincial–federal initiative does exist to provide assistance for processing plants to invest in new capital requirements, this program does nothing to alleviate the effects of increasing disposal costs resulting from the SRM ban, which contrary to the situation in the United States automatically brought the value of SRM down to nothing.
That was why we made the recommendation.
So Mr. Chair, basically the motion is the same thrust as was made two years ago, and the government has failed to act on it.
I think the parliamentary secretary was here at the meeting. We did have before us--and I'll go through the lists.
Not very often does the cattle industry come together with the slaughter industry and all agree on something. At our meeting a couple of weeks ago.... Anyway, they wrote a letter on October 27, 2009, to the minister, which has the solution in it. This letter basically recommended that:
The undersigned organizations request that the Government of Canada immediately create an OTM
--meaning the over 30 months animals, and I think we on the committee understand that--
Cattle SRM Disposal Compensation Program. Specifically, we request a payment of $31.70/head be made to abattoirs for every OTM animal slaughtered in Canada. Both federally and provincially inspected facilities should be eligible for this payment. With an estimated annual OTM slaughter of 750,000 head, the program would cost approximately $24 million per year.
That request, in the letter to Minister Ritz, dated October 27 of this year, was signed by the Canadian Cattlemen's Association, Dairy Farmers of Canada, Canadian the Federation of Agriculture, the Canadian Meat Council, the Canadian Renderers Association, La Fédération des producteurs de bovins du Québec, Levinoff-Colbex SEC, XL Foods, Atlantic Beef Producers, the Beef Value Chain Roundtable, and Cargill Beef.
My point is this, Mr. Chair. The parliamentary secretary's motion.... The government has already seen the evidence by those producers in this letter that has come before this committee.
So I would therefore move an amendment, and you'll have to decide if it's allowable or not.
I would move an amendment that the standing committee request that the Government of Canada adopt the proposal for an OTM cattle SRM disposal compensation program at $31.70 per head, as outlined in the letter by the cattle organizations and industry in the letter of October 27, 2009.
Just to keep it simple, Mr. Chair--
Liberal
Wayne Easter Liberal Malpeque, PE
Yes. I haven't written it up yet.
The clerk will have to decide whether it's allowable or not, but basically what I am saying is add a further amendment that this committee recommends to the government that they adopt the proposal outlined in the letter from the industry dated October 27, 2009.
Conservative
Brian Storseth Conservative Westlock—St. Paul, AB
Before we start speaking on this, as Mr. Easter kind of played around with the wording.... If we could just take a couple of minutes and see the actual wording—and you can read out the wording of what we are actually going to be debating today—I think it's going to be important that we know exactly what we are talking about on this amendment.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Larry Miller
Without seeing the final draft of it, and just going by memory, I believe it takes a motion that--I have to find the proper word here--basically encourages the government to work with the industry, and in fact that's what it does say, and turns it into something more specific, which is quite a change.
I'm wondering if this isn't a motion in itself.