Agriculture Committee on Sept. 30th, 2010

[The Clerk of the Committee, Ms. Chloé O'Shaughnessy]

Good morning, honourable members.

Honourable members of the committee, I see that we have a quorum. We can now proceed to the election of the chair.

Pursuant to Standing Order 106(2), the chair must be a member of the government party. I would also like to inform members that the clerk of the committee can receive motions only for the election of the chair. The clerk cannot receive any other types of motions and cannot entertain points of order or participate in debate.

I am now ready to receive motions to that effect.

Mr. Storseth.

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

I move that Larry Miller be chair.

[The Clerk]

It has been moved by Mr. Storseth that Mr. Miller be elected as chair of the committee.

Are there any further motions?

Is it the pleasure of the committee to adopt the motion?

(Motion agreed to)

I declare the motion carried and Larry Miller duly elected as chair of the committee.

Before inviting Mr. Miller to take the chair, if the committee wishes, we will now proceed to the election of the vice-chairs.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

I move that the Honourable Mark Eyking be one of the vice-chairs.

[The Clerk]

It has been moved by Mr. Hoback that Mr. Eyking be elected as first vice-chair of the committee.

Are there any other motions?

Mr. Eyking.

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

Mr. Bellavance.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

We're just asking you if you accept. Do you accept?

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

Yes, I accept. I thought they were looking for a vice-chair

[The Clerk]

Actually, I'd just like to remind members at this time that according to Standing Order 106(2), the first vice-chair must be a member of the official opposition.

It has been moved by Mr. Hoback that Mr. Eyking be elected as first vice-chair of the committee. Are there any further motions?

Is it the pleasure of the committee to adopt the motion?

(Motion agreed to)

I declare the motion carried and Mr. Eyking duly elected as vice-chair of the committee.

Pursuant to Standing Order 106(2), the second vice-chair shall be a member of an opposition party other than the official opposition party.

Yes, Ms. Bonsant?

[France Bonsant, Bloc, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

I nominate Mr. André Bellavance.

[The Clerk]

Are there any further nominations?

Is it the pleasure of the committee to adopt the motion?

(Motion agreed to)

I declare Mr. Bellavance duly elected as second vice-chair of the committee.

I now invite Mr. Miller to take the chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Thank you once again, ladies and gentlemen.

As you know, as the clerk has been calling this meeting, basically it's over, but I would suggest that we use the rest of the time we have today for a steering committee or a subcommittee, whatever you want to call it, to set direction.

Wayne.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Yes, I think we should try to determine our agenda through to at least the end of November and perhaps Christmas, Mr. Chair. I know I have a couple of motions on the floor. We're not dealing with those now, but those motions, or the intent of them, could be dealt with, I think, at the steering committee by looking at the agenda we should follow.

I had put in a request to look at the advance payments program, and the payback terms for hogs and beef. I would like that, if possible, to be considered at our initial meeting.

I have actually three cases I'm working on that are in financial trouble. It looked as though two of them were going to be able to cashflow their operations, but when the announcement came on the advanced payments and they set dates, those cashflows were thrown out. So I think we need to talk about that issue and have the department in to see whether other payback terms can be arranged. Otherwise there are going to be quite a number of people who won't survive. So I see that as a priority.

Certainly the second area would be inspections of imported food products. The CFIA auditor gave a report, so I think we should look at that fairly early too. The minister is saying one thing, but he's mostly talking domestic. The audit is saying something else. Farmers are concerned that imported products don't have to meet the same production standards or inspection standards as theirs do, so we need to deal with the facts.

I'd suggest those two issues. They might take two or three meetings at the most.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Thank you.

Mr. Hoback.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Thank you, Chair.

First of all, I want to welcome everybody back here this fall. It's great to see you all.

Of course, the weather out in Saskatchewan is a little wet, just like it is here this morning; there definitely are some challenges out in my part of the province.

I just want to make the committee aware that there will be a notice of motion coming forward. It's a joint motion from Mr. Valeriote and me. If we have unanimous consent, we'd like to bring it forward. I understand we need unanimous consent to even do that.

What we'd like to do is have the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food conduct a study on the status of the Canadian biotechnology sector: that we travel to universities across Canada where this technology is primarily being undertaken; that we recommend, where necessary, legislative, policy, and regulatory changes in order to foster an innovative and fertile biotechnology industry in Canada; and that we report our findings as a committee to the House of Commons.

Mr. Valeriote, I'll turn it over to you, if you want to talk about that a bit.

[Frank Valeriote, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Sure.

I think it's very topical at this point in time. Through the summer, I met with many people in my riding and elsewhere who emphasized the importance of biotechnology. Particularly if we're going to enter the new economy that we speak of, we have to bring rural areas and farmers along with us. This is the way to do it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

We won't get into any further discussion on that notice of motion.

I guess what I would suggest, Randy, is that it will probably come up for discussion--

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

At the subcommittee.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

--at the steering committee, yes.

Alex.

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

It's nice to be back.

Colleagues, I would just like to remind all of you that we do have a priority of legislation, and that's my bill. We kind of held it back a bit because we wanted to get that report through. I agreed to that in our last session. But I would like to see us make this bill number one priority and finish it. It is an important bill.

I have nine witnesses, and I know that you have a number, Larry. André has at least three, according to my information. The analysts have seven or so. We're looking at around 30 witnesses, so my--

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Actually, Alex, I think the last time I looked at the list, it was more at around 40.

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

At any rate, those are my calculations, based on.... I know that I have nine. In all fairness to the witnesses, and in all fairness to the folks that you propose, Larry, we should get to the bottom of this.

I would even go so far as to suggest that we could do five-minute rounds. We could do five witnesses per meeting. That would give us six meetings, and maybe one or two to tidy it up. That would put us to November 4.

We also have a report that's outstanding and that we should finish. We've been dragging that along. Then I think we should get into some other issues and new business.

My report requires.... We have to agree to an extension; you know, there was summer, and there was the fact that we didn't get into it right away. So we would have to get that mechanism going.

Theoretically--

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Alex, sorry to interrupt, but have you officially requested that extension?

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

Well, I believe we have to do it as a committee. I'm not sure what the procedure is.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Okay.