Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Timmins—James Bay.
It is truly an honour for me to rise to speak to Bill C-18 for the third time. It is an omnibus bill, and I had a chance to examine it at the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food, where we did a thorough study and heard from many witnesses. It is therefore a real honour for me to talk about Bill C-18 again here today.
This is a rather complex bill. It is an omnibus bill that amends nine existing laws. We agree with several aspects of the bill. It does include some improvements, but as it is written, it could lead to many problems, which were identified at the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food.
I repeat, we cannot support this bill because there are gaps. It does not address all the needs of the agricultural sector. If you aim big, why not do things right? The witnesses mentioned that there were things missing in this bill. It is not enough to align our legislation with UPOV 1991 so that, as though by magic, everything is fixed. We have to consider mistakes made by other countries and have a good understanding of the Canadian reality to ensure that the changes we make are as comprehensive as possible. Unfortunately, as drafted, Bill C-18 does not do that.
In order to ensure that everyone understands what the bill is all about, I will quickly recap what Bill C-18 will do and the risks it entails.
First of all, Bill C-18 will move Canada from UPOV 1978 to UPOV 1991. This has a number of consequences for the Plant Breeders' Rights Act. According to the government, the UPOV 1991 treaty will give breeders additional protection and promote private investment.
The most important changes will expand the scope of plant breeders' rights, provide interim protection for a new variety and extend the term of protected rights.
Essentially, breeders now have the following exclusive rights: the right to reproduce propagating material; the right to condition, sell, export or import material; the right to make repeated use of material to produce commercially another plant variety if the repetition is necessary; and the right to stock propagating material for the purpose of exercising other plant breeders' rights. When we look at this list it is hard to see where there might be a problem. The problem is that the Conservative government has extended the powers of plant breeders so much, in order to promote private investment, that they are at a much greater advantage compared to farmers.
Farmers have even lost the right to clean, trade and resell their seeds. What is more, plant breeders have the power to charge royalties to farmers at any time without any regard for their harvests. What we are being told is not reassuring: the competition among breeders will govern the balance of power and everything will be just fine.
It makes me wonder: why not ensure from the get-go that everything will be just fine by taking the valuable advice of our witnesses, protecting farmers' ancestral rights and limiting breeders' powers to charge royalties?
To sum up this part, Bill C-18 might help us move ahead by harmonizing the Plant Breeders’ Rights Act with UPOV '91 because it protects intellectual property and encourages innovation. The problem is that the way Bill C-18 is drafted, it might also set us back. In fact, it rolls back farmers' rights.
What is more, given the expansion of plant breeders’ rights under Bill C-18, it is likely that farmers will face increased litigation.
However, producers may well be on an extremely uneven financial playing field with plant breeders. There are no provisions in Bill C-18 to ensure that legal fees do not impede farmers’ defence in such cases.
As it happened in Germany, this bill's lack of clarity could lead to a number of legal loopholes that will clog our courts and place an additional burden on our farmers. In other words, Bill C-18 does not provide sufficient protection for farmers against the potential abuse of power by breeders. It is not balanced enough.
I would like to come back to the changes made in order to pass and amend legislation without going through Parliament. Now, laws can be amended through incorporation by reference. That means that any document can be included in the regulations associated with any of these acts through incorporation by reference. In other words, the current government can amend the act without Parliament's consent. This is nothing new. We have seen it in a number of bills introduced by this government.
The government and its senior officials justified this addition by saying that it was needed to ensure the act could be adjusted in response to various contingencies. Although I appreciate the government and its senior officials' commitment to efficiency, the amendments made to a law through incorporation by reference should be voted on or studied by the House or at least the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food. That would be a good idea.
What is more, Bill C-18 grants the Governor in Council the ability to make significant changes to the governing of various products, including to safety provisions, without the parliamentary oversight of legislative change. For example, the Governor in Council could establish regulations concerning the manufacturing, sale and shipping of products between provinces without even consulting the provinces or the House of Commons.
These strengthened powers are in addition to the changes made to the minister's authority in various laws. From now on, the minister may, subject to the regulations, suspend, cancel or renew a registration or licence and exempt someone or something from one or more regulations. The minister can do what he wants without any conditions. At the risk of repeating myself, this type of power could politicize the agricultural industry.
If it so chooses, the party in power could favour one company or even an entire sector over another, without the consent of Parliament. We know that it can sometimes be cumbersome to present and approve these changes in the House, but this process is a necessary part of democracy. The agricultural sector must absolutely not become subject or vulnerable to political interests.
In conclusion, I want to say that I support innovation and the protection of intellectual property, but I believe we must ensure that all Canadian farmers and public sector researchers are protected. I want to be sure that Canadians have access to our agricultural heritage and that they can take advantage of it. We need to ensure that new seeds are just as good—if not better—than existing ones, and we need to protect universal access to our common heritage of public seeds.
We also need to ensure that farmers or their representatives have a say about how intellectual property laws are applied and about any regulatory changes that would affect them, by eliminating the minister's authority to regulate amendments and the rights to exemptions.
Although some claim that this bill is necessary for the agricultural sector, I cannot ignore the fact that this bill will create new problems, especially since witnesses told us the same thing and they suggested solutions. That is why we presented 16 amendments. It is very sad to see such a lack of openness on the part of this government.
However, I can say that I am very proud of the work our party has done and of the fact that we are against Bill C-18.