Madam Speaker, as I was saying before the call for a quorum, I am pleased to speak today on the report stage of the Act to amend the Canadian Wheat Board Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts.
I approached this bill by asking myself what type of impact this kind of a bill would have on Quebec. Certainly, at this point western farmers are the main ones concerned, but I have analyzed the bill within this context: what sort of comments, suggestions, proposals for amendments would the farmers of Quebec have to make if the agricultural sector in Quebec were affected by this bill? I was struck first of all by the dichotomy surrounding the necessity of organizing the wheat trade. In my region, no one denies the pertinence of this. However, there are significant elements missing between the desire to organize the wheat trade properly and what this bill contains.
The first thing is that the bill does not give sufficient power to farmers or board members, to those who make their living selling their wheat, to those who have to live with the effects of government policies in this area.
In this bill, could the government not have used the opportunity to make sure the farmers were given a voice, so that the reserve fund would truly be a management tool? We have experienced this in other areas where, because sufficient reserves were not made for hard times, the money is often taken from the consolidated revenue fund, and, when this is done, the people end up paying, even if they have nothing to do with this type of business.
The best example of that is what the Conservatives made us go through with unemployment insurance several years ago. There were no reserves, we had terrible deficits, and people who are contributing to employment insurance today are still paying for this lack of foresight.
We must avoid this type of situation in the area of the wheat sales. We could very well go through this type of experience again in the coming years because, we know from past experience that the wheat market can be very volatile. There can be some very good years and also some very bad years. Everything is linked to crop results in other countries and the buying power of other countries, to international politics. So there should have been a reserve fund ensuring solid management to balance variations between good years and bad years, and there is nothing on this in the bill.
At the beginning of my presentation, I said that I would address this bill by looking at its impact on Quebec, and there is a significant impact on oilseeds management. In Quebec, oilseeds represent a promising market. It is a market for which production could be increased in the future. When we look at this bill and when we consider that it could cover oilseeds, this is perhaps not the way of the future for Quebec, precisely because there are markets here, such as linseed or other products, that could be developed and that would become mixed up in a type of management that is not suitable for them. Interesting and well structured markets already exist for those products, and these markets are working well. This bill would raise a barrier in a sector that is already operational.
So things should not be mixed up. We should avoid adding barriers in areas that already work and we should ensure that the Canadian Wheat Board does not intervene in areas that are already well structured.
This is an important issue for Quebec farmers, and this is worth considering because we all know that agriculture is undergoing tremendous changes. In the past, there has been a lot of specialization in agriculture, since there was a sort of division in production: dairy products were mostly the specialty of Ontario and Quebec, especially Quebec; other products were the specialty of the west, and so on.
But with the expected changes to international agreements and the desire to diversify production in the various regions of Canada, we must make sure that we leave the door open to the future and do not put in place structures, legislation, and regulatory requirements that would then stand in the way of development in these sectors. We know that when bureaucracy gets a hold on a sector, it is very difficult to dislodge it. It would perhaps be better to do so something about this now.
There are other aspects to this bill that are of concern to Quebec's agricultural sector. They are not in line with Quebec's agricultural tradition. This tradition includes the Union des producteurs agricoles, a strong union highly representative of the agricultural sector and one which works in collaboration with government, which expresses its viewpoint and which is accustomed to being able to operate with a certain degree of transparency that is missing from the bill before us. If this spirit had been respected for matters such as access to information, real transparency would be possible. There would be a way of making information available, to ensure that those affected by Canadian Wheat Board management have access to it so they can assess whether the board is relevant and doing a good job and, on the basis of the information available, make representations to their elected representatives and to the government, and have something on which to base their assessment. There is no such provision in this bill.
In Quebec, the agricultural tradition is such that the federal government would have wanted to ensure, for instance, that the directors are elected by the producers, by those representing the industry. There is no such provision in the legislation.
While appearing to be open, the government is maintaining significant control over the Canadian Wheat Board. The terms and conditions for electing directors are set by the government. The president of the board is appointed by the governor in council on the minister's recommendation. Does that not leave the door open to partisanship? Would it not have been possible to find a way of ensuring that the president is selected without any appearance of conflict of interest or partisanship?
Those are some of the many questions we can ask ourselves about this bill as we consider a rather substantial amendment. Some major changes are being proposed, and this legislation will not be reviewed for a while. It will affect Canadian trade in wheat and several other products, as we can see and as I referred to earlier.
We must make sure it is a framework law that will facilitate operations in Canada's agricultural sector, that will facilitate the wheat trade, and that will allow the various regions to develop new products without having to face administrative obstacles or restrictions we can no longer afford in the current context of free trade.
All in all, this is a bill which had to be introduced. It would have been possible to make it acceptable with a number of changes. The government made some efforts, but not enough.
If the government does not support amendments—particularly the ones that we are proposing—that would make for more democratic and longer term management of the Canadian Wheat Board, so as to even out the good and the bad economic years, the Bloc Quebecois will have to oppose the bill.
I urge the government majority to listen to our arguments and accept those that are relevant. I hope we can state our views during the debate on the other groups of motions, particularly in these areas, and convince the government to adopt the best possible legislation for Canada's wheat trade.