Bill C-18 Committee on Nov. 3rd, 2011

[Greg Meredith]

To be frank, Mr. Chair, we would have to get back to the committee to answer precisely.

[The Chair, Conservative, Blaine Calkins]

Mr. Easter, I appreciate the point you're trying to make with your question. I don't think it's within the scope of this particular legislation.

If there is no other discussion on this clause, then I will put it to the committee: shall clause 14 carry as amended?

(Clause 14 as amended agreed to)

I declare clause 14 as amended carried.

Colleagues, before we proceed, we've been seated here for quite some time. I propose that we suspend for five minutes for a health break before we accidentally whiz through the rest of the bill.

[The Chair, Conservative, Blaine Calkins]

Let's resume the meeting. I have a feeling that the sooner we get started, it will reflect proportionally the time that we can be finished.

Colleagues, given the fact that we're proceeding I think quite amicably, I am looking at our paper here, and clauses 15 through 41 seem to be uncontentious, because there are no proposed amendments for any of those clauses. With your consensus, I would ask that we vote on all of these clauses at once.

Shall clauses 15 through 41 carry?

(Clauses 15 to 41 inclusive agreed to)

(On clause 42--Submission to Minister)

Those clauses are carried. Moving on to clause 42, we have three proposed amendments. They're all Liberal amendments: LIB-6, -7, and -8.

Is everybody at the appropriate stage in the act?

Mr. Valeriote, these are your amendments. Do you wish to move amendment LIB-6?

[Frank Valeriote, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Yes, I do, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Blaine Calkins]

The floor is yours, sir.

[Frank Valeriote, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Mr. Chair, just for the sake of ease of discussion and understanding, when I speak I'm really speaking of all of the next three amendments. While I know I'll have to move them later, I nevertheless will speak to all three because they are all connected to one another.

It has to do with the need for the corporation, before four years has transpired, to submit an application for continuance under one of the three pieces of legislation described in paragraphs 42(a), (b), and (c), either the Canada Business Corporations Act, the Canada Cooperatives Act, or the Canada Not-for-profit Corporations Act.

The effect of all three motions would essentially be to remove the requirement to submit the application first to the minister for his approval.

I said this yesterday, although I have yet to receive a satisfactory answer, that this really is—and I'm not trying to be inflammatory here—just a continuance of the minister's insatiable urge and need for control for no good reason in this instance.

Any group of farmers can come together and form a corporation under any one of these three referred to pieces of legislation. You file the necessary documents. Typically they are articles of incorporation.

You yourself explained that the Canadian Wheat Board is not discontinuing; it's continuing in a new form. Well, it will be continuing beyond that, through what we're calling continuance, under one of these three pieces of legislation, but it would nevertheless have to comply with the requirements of one of those three pieces of legislation.

Ultimately, the people who decide that are not the minister or the Governor in Council, but the bureaucrats who are there to look at any documents submitted to them in the normal course of business for incorporation under any of those three pieces of legislation.

By then, the CWB will have to make this application or it will cease to exist within a year after that. After that point in time, after they become a new corporation, there will be no more guarantees by the government. There will be no association, really, with the government, no association whatsoever. That means there will be no liability or exposure for the government, essentially, and that means there will be no taxpayers' money at risk.

While I know that you've probably come into this meeting tonight with the understanding that there will be no concessions whatsoever--and I don't mean that to be inflammatory, I understand how this works--I would think that at the very least you would enable this corporation, since it is about to be birthed into a private corporation...give it the dignity of having that opportunity not controlled by the minister but under its own control, so that it can file its articles under any of those three pieces of legislation and continue, should they choose to do so.

It really is that simple, gentlemen. It's that simple. It is something that you would want if any two or more of you decided to come together and continue as a cooperative under any of those three pieces of legislation.

In fact, we speak of freedom--you speak of freedom, you shout freedom when you talk about this bill--and yet there is no freedom throughout the course of the four years for the farmers, except to engage the board or not engage the board. But there's no freedom for those who have engaged the Canadian Wheat Board because it will be the minister--

[The Chair, Conservative, Blaine Calkins]

Mr. Valeriote, your five minutes have expired. If you want to finish your thought quickly, go ahead.

[Frank Valeriote, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

I'm asking you to give this board the freedom to proceed and continue under the new legislation without permission by the minister.

[The Chair, Conservative, Blaine Calkins]

Mr. Valeriote, given that we're back on the.... We're out of clause 14. I look at the proposed amendments. You spoke to all three of these amendments at once because you had to under the e circumstances of the five minutes given for this clause.

I will ask you what your personal wish is. The committee could vote on each of these individually, or we could vote on all three and have the vote apply to all three at once. Given they're all your amendments. I will--

[Frank Valeriote, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

I'm happy to vote on each one individually.

[The Chair, Conservative, Blaine Calkins]

Individually, okay, but the Liberal time--

[Frank Valeriote, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

I'd like a response from the government. I would like a response from the government or from Mr. Rempel, who is the lawyer here, to tell me if I'm wrong.

[The Chair, Conservative, Blaine Calkins]

Mr. Anderson is going to have time.

Your time has expired.

But I will allow a brief response, Mr. Rempel, if you choose to do so. Is there anything there in Mr. Valeriote's testimony that you saw as a question to which you would like to respond? Is there anything...?

Mr. Meredith?

[Greg Meredith]

Yes.

The purpose of having ministerial oversight is because taxpayers' dollars are at stake. At the beginning of the fourth year, you can imagine a situation, however unlikely, where government guarantees have been invoked for borrowing purposes, including for purchases of real property, with taxpayers' money backing up those borrowings. If the corporation were to go private, the taxpayers would be on the hook for those moneys.

This is simply an insurance policy so that the privatization model doesn't put taxpayers' funds at risk.

[The Chair, Conservative, Blaine Calkins]

Mr. Anderson.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

I think Mr. Meredith said it all. It's the point that we've tried to make with Mr. Valeriote for the last couple of days but he still doesn't seem to accept or understand.

[The Chair, Conservative, Blaine Calkins]

Very good.

Given the fact that the Liberal time has expired on this and I don't see anybody else prepared to speak to it--

[A voice]

Can we have a recorded vote?

[The Chair, Conservative, Blaine Calkins]

We can have a recorded vote.

I'm going to call the question on amendment LIB-6: shall the amendment carry?

(Amendment negatived [See Minutes of Proceedings])

The amendment is defeated.

I will now do the same for amendment LIB-7.

[Frank Valeriote, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Could l have five minutes?

[The Chair, Conservative, Blaine Calkins]

You've had your five minutes on clause 42, Mr. Valeriote.

[Frank Valeriote, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Oh, it's not broken down into three separate...? Okay. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Blaine Calkins]

No, that's why I was asking you how you wanted to proceed on the voting on this.

[Frank Valeriote, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

That's fine.

[The Chair, Conservative, Blaine Calkins]

On amendment number 7, all those in favour--