The parliamentary secretary is 80% correct. The other 20% is that in 5.3(2), it's explicit as to what exactly he's talking about. He's talking about harvested material by a farmer, such as excluding a particular plant variety from what is safeguarded by farmers' privilege, unreasonable limits on a farmer's use of harvested material, and a limited proportion for harvesting.
It is specific. It isn't so regulations can never be written again, unless of course you come back to Parliament. That's not what it says. It is talking about a particular piece and specifically about what is deemed in the bill to be farmers' privilege, albeit I think it should be farmers' right. It's talking about the specifics of that piece, not that regulations generally for all time under this particular act can never be done. That's not what it's trying to attempt to do.
Again, it falls back, and you'll see a theme, Mr. Chair, that my friend Mr. Eyking has done, and we've done as well, and the government did to a certain degree, albeit we felt it needed to move a bit further. In the preceding amendments where we were talking about the section on farmers' privilege and trying to enhance it...because if there were a theme that all witnesses talked in mentioning the farmers' privilege part of this legislation, it was that it needed to be clarified. They needed it to be enhanced and strengthened to the point where people truly understood what it is.
That's what these things are trying to do, no less, no more, and not to infringe upon the government's right to make regulations except in specific areas when it comes to what farmers have pointed out from the very beginning of this legislation and what the government by its own amendment to its legislation recognized, which is that there was not strong enough language under the farmers' privilege section. Otherwise they never would have amended it. They brought forward an amendment, and the minister agreed that it needed some clarification. What we're trying to do, the only thing we're trying to do, is enhance that piece so that farmers truly understand that their privilege is truly protected, because that is their biggest fear.
There are many pieces in this legislation and, quite correctly, Mr. Chair, when you have lumped many clauses together, we've agreed with you because we didn't have any amendments because we agreed with the clauses. We agree with the vast majority of this legislation. It's in specific areas where we are pointing out some failings and some weaknesses. Maybe “failings“ is too strong a word—perhaps some weaknesses is better. That's what we're trying to point out in this legislation. These are weaknesses that we think can be enhanced. Nearly every witness who addressed this area said the same thing over and over again. Unfortunately the government, when it said it was going to bring something forward, was a little “lacking”, if I can use that word, in strengthening it.
They did amend it, I give them that. I can't suggest that they didn't, and for the record, just to make sure, because I know we've been voting quite quickly and we don't always see the hands, Mr. Chair, we actually voted with the government on their amendment. We voted in favour of it, albeit in the words of an old friend of mine, it just doesn't go far enough.