Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to speak to the three amendments in the first package today, amendments 1, 4 and 5.
I will start with amendment No.1 which puts in this bill a requirement for consultation with the people who would be affected by research done with the money collected through this fund established by the Canadian Wheat Board.
There is need for consultation. Certainly my concern with that amendment is that by putting it in the act it may lead to more consultation than is necessary. I say that because in this case the check off is refundable. Because of its refundable nature I suggest that when the research foundation is setting the level of funding it should be careful to make sure that the level is reasonable.
Because of the refundable nature I think this amendment is not needed and may cause a lot of extra bureaucracy beyond what is necessary. For this reason I do not think I can support this amendment, although I do recognize the need for consultation.
Another concern is that it still leaves the power to make the decision in terms of the level of the check off in the hands of the governor in council. The power should be left strictly in the hands of the Western Grains Research Foundation, the organization that will allocate the funding for research. For that reason I cannot support that amendment.
Amendment No. 4 is the Reform amendment which, as the Bloc member has stated very clearly and very well, would simplify the process that farmers would have to go through in order to get a refund for their research funding.
This amendment would put on the permit book application form, which every grain farmer receives every year, another box and require the farmer to check off the box if they want to get a refund on their check off for this particular year.
Some argue that it is really not a problem for a farmer to write a letter for a check off. As a grain farmer I know that farmers are inundated with stacks of letters and requests, a tremendous amount of book work they do not ask for. This would just be another piece of paper, another duty, another responsibility, another process they would have to go through to do business. I think there is far too much government interference right now. Certainly farmers would appreciate this simplification of the process. I believe simplifying the process of refund would be very worthwhile in this bill.
Amendment No. 5 put forth by the NDP is really asking for the wheat board to have complete control to interfere with check offs that are presently in place. For example, right now the western barley growers have a refundable check off through the Alberta Barley Commission. Barley farmers selling barley in Alberta already have a check off in place. This amendment would require that the people selling barley would have a check off by the wheat board as well as by the Alberta Barley Commission. For that reason it would cause a double check off or would cause the barley growers to give up their check off.
It is a general Reform principle that the closer to the people one can put decision making, the better the decision will be. In this case I believe it would be better to leave it in the hands of the barley producers in Alberta, just as an example, instead of requiring that all the check offs are done through the Canadian Wheat Board.
I cannot and will not support this amendment because it is just another move to put the power in the hands of this huge bureaucratic monopoly. I can in no way endorse that. Leave it in the hands of the Alberta Barley Commission for example.
I will leave my comments at that. I certainly look forward to speaking on this bill again at third reading.