Agriculture Committee on March 10th, 2011

[Frank Valeriote, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

I'm dealing with the motion at hand.

Secondly, Mr. Chair, page 1052 of O'Brien and Bosc—

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

I'm quite aware of what the—

[Frank Valeriote, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

-—gives you the authority to rule on this motion.

Mr. Shipley made reference to precedent. It has been a precedent that certain motions have taken precedence over other motions.

If you look at Mr. Hoback and I, and my motion of October 30, there were several motions that preceded that, and we have undertaken--

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

I would just point out that the previous motions were pulled off. We went around the table, and they were pulled off. I distinctly remember that.

Anyway, continue.

[Frank Valeriote, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

There's no precedent that requires one motion to be heard after the other. It simply is not the case. There have been many times when somebody has put their hand up, brought a motion, and it's been dealt with. Admittedly, maybe it was by the inadvertence of committee with those who brought motions previously, but nevertheless there is no established precedent that one be heard after the other.

You do have the authority and the jurisdiction, on page 1052 of O'Brien and Bosc, to hear this motion first.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Yes.

I have already turned down some potential speakers. As I said, I'm not taking any more on the list, but I still have Mr. Eyking and Mr. Lemieux.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'm quite disappointed with the rhetoric from the government side. This is not about Mr. Easter.They shouldn't be doing a character assassination on him. This is about procedure.

I don't know where Mr. Storseth got that book there, but he should call his whip. It is very common in House of Commons committees for the majority of the committee to prioritize how motions go. We've done this here. I've seen it on the foreign affairs committee. It's a regular thing.

Without further ado, Mr. Chair, you should have your clerk rule on this, and let's get it done.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

The clerk doesn't rule, I do.

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

No, I meant advise you on the ruling. Let's get 'er done.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

I've already done that.

Mr. Lemieux, you're the last speaker.

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

Thank you, Chair.

The first thing is that I'm not sure why you're limiting the speakers list on this, because normally, out of respect for members, if members have a point of view they want to expound upon, they need to be given that opportunity. Limiting debate and limiting a list serves no purpose, if we're to have full and open debate.

I would ask you to revisit that, because there are other MPs.... For example, Mr. Richards has a motion that sits in front of Mr. Easter's motion, and we haven't heard from Mr. Richards yet about whether he would be willing to let his motion slide and why he feels that it should slide or not slide. How does he feel about it? He will be directly impacted by your ruling.

What's going to happen here, Chair, is that you're going to make a ruling. If you rule in favour of the fact that we're going to actually respect the precedent of this committee, which is that we follow motions in the order in which they are presented, then we'll challenge your ruling and overturn it. That's what's going to happen. Then Mr. Richards, who actually has a motion that's sitting in front of Mr. Easter's, will not have an opportunity to explain what his position is on this. And I just don't think that's right.

I actually think that other members who want to participate in the debate today should be able to participate in this debate. I see no useful purpose in cutting members off because Mr. Easter feels that he has an urgent priority. That's his opinion. I think what we've heard from my colleagues, Chair, is that it is only his opinion.

There have been many times on this committee when a member's had an opinion, and we've had fulsome debate on that opinion and have not cut people off just because a member feels that it's urgent or is in his best interest.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Mr. Lemieux, I just want to point out that my decision to limit the speakers list was not based on Mr. Easter's wants or needs. It was based on the fact that we're not in debate. We started out with points of order on his motion to bring forth, and I think I have been more than fair in giving a chance for pretty well everybody around the table to have their opinions put out there on whether they agree with--

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

Mr. Chair, that's not the case. Mr. Richards asked to be added to the list, and you said no. He actually has a motion that sits--

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Mr. Lemieux, I'm not going to debate it with you, but I gave fair warning well in advance that I was not taking any more. So it wasn't a surprise. I'm sorry, but that's the way it is.

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

Let me continue. Mr. Easter has a big Cheshire cat smile on there.

The first thing, Chair, is that there was no consultation on this. Out of respect, you would think that the opposition would have consulted with at least one of the MPs on this side of the table.

We meet two times per week, two hours each time. We're all in the House, generally, for question period.

I have Mr. Easter's contact information here, and he has mine. Why do we have that? So that we can consult.

I have yours as well, André, in case you didn't know that.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

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

Why do we have that information, Chair? For consultation. It's not to cook up deals; it's out of respect, to discuss things that are important.

If this is a burning issue, why was there no consultation? This doesn't make any sense to me. Normally, when there has been a burning issue, there has been at least a modicum of respect, to approach the other side to say this is what we're thinking of doing at the next meeting. We do this on all sorts of matters--but not today, not on this matter. I do not understand that.

The second thing concerns the procedure here. There is a way out of this. I don't want you to think that there's no way out of this. The way out of this is for Mr. Easter to ask for unanimous consent to move his motion forward. That's the way we've done it before; it's the way we've always done it. I don't understand why we're changing it today. What is so urgent about today?

I think it is showing lack of respect, as I mentioned before, for the committee, because we have a well-established procedure, and for some reason Mr. Easter and his colleagues want to trample over that procedure without...without due course.

The third thing I want to mention, Chair, is Roundup Ready alfalfa. We're in the middle of a biotech study, right in the middle of it. We're going to be calling more witnesses; we're going to be preparing a report on this. This is the kind of thing you would find in the report. It's why we're doing a biotech study--so that we can look at all aspects of the situation.

We've had all sorts of witnesses, Chair. We've had witnesses from the organic sector. We've had witnesses from the biotechnology sector. We've had farmers themselves. We've had representation from farm groups, farm associations, research groups, research associations. We've heard a good diversity of opinion, as we're supposed to. We're then supposed to work on a report. We would have a draft report prepared; we would review that report; we would look at including things in recommendations.

What is in this motion is actually short-circuiting the work we're doing on biotech. If we were to follow this example, why would we not just do away with the report and start injecting motions into meetings about what would normally be recommendations in reports? It doesn't make any sense.

We just finished a report today on programming. There are recommendations, but those recommendations weren't put in front of committee as motions; they were done in the context of a report after a study. It was the same when we studied competitiveness in agriculture. It was the same when we studied young farmers. The main recommendations came about in the report. They weren't rocketed to the top of a motions list. They weren't strong-armed by the opposition, nor by us. Instead, we did our due diligence by having witnesses come; we gave thoughtful consideration to their testimony; we had a draft report prepared; we reviewed the draft report as a committee; we had debate on certain points; we had debate on certain recommendations; and then we tabled the report in the House.

What baffles me here, Chair, is that we're in the middle of a biotech study. This committee has traveled together as a committee on the biotech study, we've touched on Roundup Ready alfalfa, we've heard from different witnesses about certain concerns. But this should be included in the report. This is why we do a report. This is why we do a fulsome study. This is why we have different witnesses come in.

This is actually short-circuiting the work of the committee. It's highly irregular for this committee. It's actually undermining the goodwill in this committee.

My colleagues have brought up that for two and a half years, for the most part—I would say 90% of the time—we have been able to work in a very constructive and cooperative manner. The times we have not, if you go back and check the record, are the times when the opposition have pulled this kind of game, when they have tried to bully and strong-arm a motion. That's when the committee has broken down.

When we're working on a study, as I mentioned—on competitiveness and agriculture, on young farmers, on biotech—we tend to work in a spirit of cooperation and in a spirit of wanting to do what's best for the farm community. We have tended not to leverage our position for partisan advantage.

And that's what's happening here, Chair. You should see this motion for what it is. There was no consultation done, no respect shown for the past precedent of this committee. There was no respect for the way in which this committee normally conducts itself, no respect for the study that we're doing, for the report that's going to follow. This is to gain some type of partisan advantage, and I think what the partisan advantage is linked to is the confusing signals that they sent out on on Bill C-494.

That's the second point, Chair. I'm mentioning that we're in the middle of a biotech study, so we have ample opportunity to—

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

I presume you meant Bill C-474.

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

Yes, Bill C-474; I'm sorry.

We have ample opportunity now to look at the content of this motion as part of our study and as part of our report.

But the other opportunity that we had, Chair, was when we were studying Mr. Atamanenko's bill, Bill C-474. That was a look at GM products, GM agricultural crops. We had debate on it, and Mr. Easter sent out extremely confusing signals. He supported Mr. Atamanenko's bill every step of the way. He did it in the House, he did it in committee, he did it on motions, on debate. When it came time to vote, he voted in favour of Mr. Atamanenko's bill at every single step except the last step. At the last step, he sent a confusing signal to the agricultural community, because he had been going along with Bill C-474, sowing confusion and dissent, and—

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Yes, I was just.... It may be the same.

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

No, this is important--

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

I mean, this is absolutely ridiculous. As I said on Bill C-474 in the beginning, we wanted to see it go to debate. I made it very clear in the beginning that we didn't support the bill, but said let's have the debate and discussion. And in fact it's out of that debate and discussion that this motion comes forward. We have seen the seriousness of the issue.

I'm getting a little tired of the attack here, but let's get down to business.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

I was just about to suggest that you stick to the topic, Mr. Lemieux.

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

No, this touches on the point. Mr. Easter wants his way: like, Mr. Lemieux, it's great that you're talking, but stop talking, because I want my way; I want my motion moved ahead; we'll talk about all this when the motion is actually tabled.

Chair, what I am saying is that the motion should not be reviewed by committee right now. We have other motions in advance.

What he just said is exactly my point. That's the kind of attitude that is causing a breakdown in committee. We just worked together very well for the period of an hour on a report, and now everything is blown to bits because we have a motion that has come in front—