Agriculture Committee on March 5th, 2009

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Mr. Storseth.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Once again, we spent a great deal of time in the last Parliament looking at this issue. This is something everybody agreed on.

This is, once again, revisionist history by Mr. Easter, coming forward with this. I could table his press release of May 21, 2008. The headline is, “Conservatives Announce Made-by-Liberals Ag Product Policy”. I mean, they're out there, busy trying to steal the credit for this stuff when we announce it, and then they come back six months or a year later and say they think it's gone too far.

The fact of the matter is that we need to let the changes that were just made continue to move forward. The agriculture committee put a very extensive report out on this already. I think what we need to do....

It's not that this isn't important. It's not that we shouldn't look at this in the future. It's just that right now we have had witnesses, all the way from the NFU to the Canadian Cattlemen's Association, come forward and tell us we need to look at the competitiveness of our red meat sector; we need to look at the issues of competition that have been brought forward; we need to look at regulatory issues. I think these are the things on which we need to be putting priority, moving forward and putting aside the political partisan games that Mr. Easter continues to bring up.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

I'm going to call the vote.

(Motion agreed to)

The meeting is adjourned until--

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Wait a minute, Mr. Chair. What about my motion that's on there?

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Well, we're at the end of the meeting time. We can deal with it at the start of the next meeting.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

I thought you said we were going to 12:20.

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

Point of order.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

But it's well past 12:20.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

No, no, not 12:20; it was 1:10 that you'd said, Mr. Chair.

I don't have a problem, Mr. Chair, if you want to move it to the next meeting, but these questions need to be answered. This is a serious issue.

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

Point of order just the same. Mr. Chairman, I am certain that you said the committee would sit until 1:10 p.m. because we started at 11:10 a.m. That is what I wanted to point out.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

I did say that, yes.

Mr. Easter said it was fine to bring it at the start of the next meeting, but--

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

I'm not going to be sticky on this, but you did say.... Do we have the room until 1:10?

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

I don't see anybody else in here.

I did say that, you're right. But if it's your wish to go until 1:10, then so be it.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Okay, I shall move it, Mr. Chair, and I'll read it into the record and why. This comes about as a result of Mr. Hoback's original resolution, Mr. Chair.

The motion is that the Chair of the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food contact the office of the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food, in writing, requesting answers to the following questions:

1. When did the Minister of Agriculture or his department receive the Canadian Wheat Board's financial statement which he tabled in the House on February 11, 2009? Were those financial statements reviewed by the Minister or officials of his department or any other department prior to their being tabled and was the Minister provided with a report?

2. When did the Minister first contact the CWB concerning the issue of the contingency fund issue which he expressed such concern about on February 11th?

3. Did the Minister call upon the Auditor General to examine the issue of the contingency fund issue, and if not, why not?

4. Is the Minister prepared to state in writing that he is questioning the audit of the CWB's Financial Statements he tabled in the House on February 11, 2009 given that he and members of the government have made public statements drawing that audit and its findings into question? If he has found no fault with the audit will he state that in writing?

5.The Minister stated that in the House on February 11, 2009 at p. 679 of Hansard referring to western Canadian farmers that “they asked me to point out these flaws”. When did these “farmers” contact the Minister, were they members of the CWB's Board of Directors? If not, did they have access to the CWB financial statements prior to the Minister tabling them in the House?

6. And that the Chair of the Committee request that the response to each of these questions from the office of the Minister be provided to the Clerk of the Committee no later than March 9, 2009.

I so move, Mr. Chair.

The only point l will make is that this is an extremely serious issue in that the minister has responsibility for the Canadian Wheat Board, and so does the parliamentary secretary. To table a report and basically attack the Canadian Wheat Board when it has had the best returns ever.... In fact, as many state, the board outperformed its international competitors--an outstanding performance that should be recognized even by the board's most strident critics.

The Canadian Wheat Board itself sent out a letter on March 3, or a press release, in which it says: “Unfortunately, certain individuals and groups have made selective use of figures in the CWB annual report to publicize misleading information about CWB financial performance for western Canadian producers”, Mr. White said. “Many of these comments are untrue and damaging to the commercial reputation of this organization.”

It is an issue, as I understand it, Mr. Chair, that is impacting our commercial reputation abroad. So for those reasons, I think we need some answers from the minister relative to the issues I've raised in the motion.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Thank you.

Further debate, Mr. Tweed.

[Merv Tweed, Conservative, Brandon—Souris, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have more of a question for clarification.

Is it the committee's responsibility or can it mandate the minister on a timeline of March 9? And if the answer is yes, why wouldn't you ask for it by the end of today? I don't believe you can. I don't believe the committee can mandate the minister to respond on a deadline. You can ask for it--

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Ask the question through me.

I'm not sure whether it was required from a legal standpoint. I guess you can ask anything, but whether it's realistic or binding, I'm not sure. I would think it's probably pretty hard to enforce a timeline, but again, it doesn't keep you from asking, I suppose.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

For the people over there.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Yes, Mr. Storseth.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Before the question of relevance to the motion even gets brought up, I would like to say, through you, that Mr. Easter did bring up the Wheat Board's competitiveness and the Wheat Board's past performance. I think while this whole discussion on the Wheat Board is a very important issue, it's important that both sides of the argument are read into the record, and I think it's also critically important that Mr. Easter recognize some of the very valuable, very in-depth research that has gone on in the last several years in regard to the Canadian Wheat Board.

I would like to read to the committee the executive summary of a report titled An Open Market for CWB Grain: A study to determine the implications of an open marketplace in western Canadian wheat, durum and barley for farmers, final report, June 2008, by the Informa Economics company.

Mr. Chair, this study says:

The following study has been conducted to address the need for up-to-date and objective analysis of the potential impact for farmers of an open market for wheat, durum and barley in western Canada. The approach utilized in this study refrains from—

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Point of order.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

On a point of order--and no doubt Brian has the rule book there--all we're asking here from the committee are some questions. I don't think the point that Brian is making is relevant to the motion. All we're asking is for some straight answers from the Minister of Agriculture. That's simple. Nine hundred people—surely to God, over the weekend, they could get an answer.

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

Can I make a response, Mr. Chair?

Clearly, in Mr. Easter's rant on his motion, he clearly stated the performance of the Wheat Board as one of the key functions of why he's asking this. Therefore my response and my question here is relevant to his motion.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Yes, I think it's fair.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, because I really don't believe that some of the members of the opposition have had the chance to read this very, very in-depth report that talks about the sustainable harm the Canadian Wheat Board has done to western Canadian farmers.

I will continue:The approach utilized in this study refrains from a theoretical modeling approach in favour of direct evaluations of price performance and cost efficiencies by open market and single-desk selling systems. These comparative—