Agriculture Committee on Dec. 8th, 2009

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

Okay, that is it. No one, not you, not Pierre Lemieux is going to put words in my mouth. When I make a motion, I make it, and I ask permission to discuss it. Good grief! You are skewing the facts; you are saying that I show up, just like that, that I just want to have fun by talking about my motion for five or six minutes for no reason. What I want is for my motion to be discussed and voted on. Afterwards, we can—

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

André, I never said anything of the kind.

Look, I checked with the clerk. It's on page 1087. I'll let her come and show it to you, if you wish. I'm not making it up.

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

On a point of order, Mr. Chair, there seems to be some general disagreement here. Maybe we could have time to collect the blues on this, and then you could all get your arguments out of the way in that manner.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

A point of order, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Is it a point of order?

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Yes, it is.

I think Pierre is right. There was a motion at committee to retable, so all André has to do is move a motion to lift it off the table again and then we can discuss it and we're certain--

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

That's what I tried to say.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

So if André could move a motion, that would be great.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

I have Mr. Lemieux, I have Mr. Atamanenko, and then I have Mr. Easter. Then I have Mr. Bellavance.

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

Chair, I was just at the point where I was commenting that I think we need to move ahead with the report, and I would like to table a motion. I'm going to table a motion now that states that the committee call forward no more witnesses and debate no more motions until the review of our competitiveness report is complete. And the reason I am making that motion, Chair, is because we need to focus on our report.

There seems to be a general agreement--I'll call it a low-level agreement--among all my colleagues around the table to focus on the report and to get it done. But it's going to take a motion like this to actually, I'll say, constrain the committee to focus its efforts and focus its resources on finalizing the report.

If we don't have a motion like this that somewhat guides the committee in the direction of the report, Chair, what's going to happen is that another MP--probably on the opposition side--will have yet another motion to bring in front of committee while we are studying the report. I think this is my main point, Chair. As I mentioned at the beginning, as of today there were five motions from the opposition in front of committee, all of which had been put in front of committee since we started studying the report, focusing on the report. So to me, all of this debate is actually slowing down the work that we need to do on the report so that we can bring it through to a speedy resolution.

That's my motion, Chair. I had lengthy discussions--I'm talking in the neighbourhood of 45 minutes to an hour--during the last meeting with my colleagues, and I'm appealing to them to support this motion so that we can actually get on with the report, which is what I heard my colleagues clearly wanting to do when I was discussing this issue with them last week, Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Okay. Discussion on Mr. Lemieux's motion?

I have Mr. Atamanenko next on the list, and then Mr. Easter.

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

I speak against the motion. We have a democratic process in place in our committee, and you and I talked about this briefly, Pierre, and I didn't talk to anybody else after I talked to you. My suggestion was that we move very quickly through all the motions we have. We all have a position on them. We know we can get stuff on the record. We basically know where all of us stand. We should just get through these motions; it shouldn't take a long time. Then we can get back down to business and get this report done. There is no reason why we can't even start it today and finish it this week.

We do have a democratic process. We have a right to at least vote on the motions that we have before committee, and let's get on with it. I think we can get both things done if we just keep the rhetoric to a minimum, get down and vote, and we can get on with it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Mr. Easter.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I will be speaking against this motion because of what it does. It's really interesting how the parliamentary secretary some days wants to debate the motions and some days doesn't. They really wanted to debate the motion that I believe I had on prison farms, and that held up the committee's work because the majority that day wished to defeat it. And that's fine, it's defeated. It's not a problem with me. As I said to my colleagues, don't worry about it; they can vote against it and that is fine. So that motion is lost.

But he tries to leave the impression that it's the opposition members who take up the committee's time. It's not the case at all. If anybody ever played games in this committee, it's more often the government than it is the opposition.

Yes, we'd like to see your report on competitiveness dealt with. There is no question about that. But to support a motion that hamstrings this committee from doing its work in other areas... If we were to support that motion, this report, for whatever reason, might not get done for months.

The motion André has here is I think of an urgent basis. It's something the industry came forward with on an urgent basis and asked us to do. It should be something the government could quite simply support. I just referred to what I said previously on the motion, Mr. Chair, and that is that two years ago in December--under Chair James Bezan--we presented a report in the House on this very issue, and the government still has not dealt with this very issue. So I think we have a responsibility as a committee to--

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

A point of order, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

A point of order, Mr. Storseth.

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

I don't want to take up too much of my honourable colleague's time, but he should stick to the facts.

We did present a report on the red meat sector, which you'd be very aware of as you were on the committee at the time. The minister then took action within a month's time, and he was congratulated by the Canadian Cattlemen's Association. I would be more than happy to go down the list of farm organizations that endorsed the actions the minister took and the speed with which he took those actions.

I don't know if Mr. Easter was on holiday during that time, but it certainly was an important time for the red meat sector in my province. So I think he should stick to the facts.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Mr. Easter.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

If the member wants to get into quotes, I can start quoting from farmers, not just the farm leadership. I know the--

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

We are debating Mr. Lemieux's motion, but you do have the floor.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

That's fine. The fact of the matter is, Mr. Chair, that it was two years ago--it continues to go to the record of failures--and this issue of SRMs has not been dealt with. The industry is uncompetitive as a result.

André's motion makes a lot of sense, and therefore....

I will say this, though, Mr. Chair. I have a motion on the table as well--

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

You do.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

--that I think deals with--

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Let's deal with one motion at a time, Mr. Easter.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

I know. I just want to make this point, Mr. Chair.

I'm not going to put forward that motion today or on Thursday, so we will have time to get through the report. I'll hold it back. It is a motion highly condemning the Minister of Agriculture and his lack of effort in supporting farmers. But we'll not deal with it before Christmas.

I oppose the motion by the parliamentary secretary. Let's get it out of the way so we can do something specific and concrete for the livestock industry by supporting André's motion.