Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to speak to the amendments in Group No. 2, put forward by my hon. colleague from the Progressive Conservative Party.
I note at the outset that these amendments, Motions Nos. 2, 3, 4 and 6, as put forward by my hon. colleague from the fifth party, clearly outline the need for voluntary participation in this levy that is going to be imposed on producers of special crops in western Canada.
When the commodity groups appeared before the standing committee on agriculture almost unanimously their one greatest concern was the fact that, despite the premise that the levy or the check-off would be voluntary, the fact is that it is mandatory upfront.
I just want to explain this to everyone watching the debate today so they clearly understand what this means. When the producer hauls a truckload of the designated special crops to the delivery point, the levy of 38 cents per $100 will be deducted regardless of whether he or she opts out of the check-off; in other words, does not want to participate in the insurance plan.
As my hon. colleague from the Conservative Party just said, very clearly this is a form of negative option billing. In this case the producer has no option but to have that levy deducted from his or her paycheque.
At the start of the year he or she can apply to the agent, the Canadian Grain Commission, which is going to be administering this fund, stating that they do not want to participate and they want their levy money returned to them following the completion of the crop year.
The way the bill is constituted, they then have to keep track of how much would be deducted off of each and every truckload and each and every designated commodity because they may grow more than one of the special crops. They have to keep track of that and then at the end of the year or at a designated time set up by the agent apply for a refund.
There was some concern expressed at committee, both for the need to have this voluntary upfront and if it does have to be this negative option billing process that the producer should only have to let his or her views be known once. In other words, if they wanted to opt out they should not have the administrative burden of keeping track throughout the year and tallying it all up at the end of the year, similar to how they now have to keep track of the GST and apply for a refund.
Without fail, when the producer groups appeared before the committee they said this was their greatest concern. Did the government listen? Unfortunately, no.
Amendments that I had put forward on behalf of the official opposition at committee were voted down by the Liberals on the standing committee for agriculture. The amendments that I introduced at committee were virtually identical to the ones put forward by my hon. colleague now at report stage. Appearing before the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food on April 21 were eight commodity groups: the Alberta Pulse Growers Commission, the Manitoba Pulse Growers Association, the Saskatchewan Canola Growers, the Saskatchewan Farmer Consultations for SCRIP, the Saskatchewan Pulse Growers, the Western Barley Growers, the Western Canadian Marketers and Processors Association and the Western Canadian Wheat Growers Association.
If memory serves me correctly, with the possible exception of the Western Canadian Marketers and Processors, all of the witnesses appearing expressed the same concern about the way in which this levy would be collected. In other words, there would be an additional administrative burden placed on farmers. They would not be able to opt out, in a one-time opting out, whereby they could say “I have looked at this. I have studied it. I understand that the government is moving to endeavour to have insurance for all of the special crops buyers and dealers to ensure that in the event one of them were to go bankrupt the producer, if he or she had speciality crops in storage with that particular dealer, would be covered”. Why is the industry interested in making some changes in this area? As we have heard, there is a concern out there that there are a number of unlicensed small dealers, small buyers, and that farmers in some cases may be unaware they are not protected. In other words, these dealers, these buyers of the speciality crops, are possibly unlicensed and therefore have not put up a bond to protect the producer, to protect the farmer, in the event of bankruptcy.
The government wants to implement this process. It will mean more regulation. All dealers and buyers will have to be licensed, for which of course there will be a licence fee, and all of them will have to be insured.
We heard from a number of producers about this. The problem is that once again we see big government making decisions for the producers. Instead of the old adage “buyer beware”, possibly we could have “seller beware” and allow the producer to make a conscious choice. Perhaps he or she could derive a bit more money, a few more dollars per pound or per bushel or per tonne, whatever the case may be, for their product if they were to take the risk of selling that product to an unlicensed, uninsured, unprotected buyer or dealer.
If there was a substantial amount money involved the producer might not want to take the risk. For example, they may be shipping carloads of a commodity. We could be talking about hundreds of thousands of dollars. If they did not want to take that risk, they would then ensure that they sold their product or had it in storage with a dealer or buyer who was insured, who was bonded, so they would be protected in the unlikely event that the particular company were to go broke. I say unlikely because the instances of these corporations, these dealers, going broke is very, very rare.
Unfortunately there is a real lack of evidence as to whether this process, this check-off to ensure that all dealers and buyers are insured and licensed, is going to be a great boon for the special crops industry. Certainly the government would like everyone to believe that this is going to promote the industry. However there is no real evidence that this will happen.
In some quarters there has been some evidence to suggest that it will provide a disincentive for good business practices by these dealers. Presently if a sizeable bond has to be put up, there is an incentive built in to ensure they operate in as efficient and effective manner as possible and to ensure that they do everything to keep from going bankrupt. If they go bankrupt, of course they will lose the sizeable bond they put up. Now they will be working with an insurance fund where the farmers are paying for the insurance. They will not be putting up any bond whatsoever. Therefore, it is no wonder dealers and agents are in favour of this legislation.