Debates of June 16th, 2014

Prohibiting Cluster Munitions Act

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

In my opinion the nays have it.

And five or more members having risen:

The recorded division on the motion stands deferred.

Normally at this time the House would proceed to the taking of the deferred recorded divisions at the report stage of the bill; however, pursuant to an order made on Tuesday, May 27, 2014, the divisions stand deferred until Tuesday, June 17, 2014, at the expiry of the time provided for oral questions.

The House resumed from June 13 consideration of the motion that Bill C-18, An Act to amend certain Acts relating to agriculture and agri-food, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Agricultural Growth Act

[Élaine Michaud, NDP, Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC]

Mr. Speaker, obviously NDP members are the only ones working in the House tonight. I am very proud of them.

I am very pleased to rise again to speak to Bill C-18, An Act to amend certain Acts relating to agriculture and agri-food. Before getting to the main part of my speech, I would like to mention that I will be splitting my time with my wonderful colleague, the member for Dartmouth—Cole Harbour. We are all looking forward to hearing from him.

The bill before us today is another omnibus bill, courtesy of the Conservatives. This is no surprise. We have become accustomed to their way of doing things. However they introduced a refreshing change. Even though the bill amends nine different laws—all the amendments are contained in the same document—they did something very unusual. For once, they focused exclusively on agriculture and agri-food. They seem to have learned something from the previous omnibus bills. At least this time around they have not presented us with a host of amendments that have absolutely nothing to do with the substance of the bill. It is an improvement and we hope the Conservatives will also improve the way they manage the proceedings in the House and the democratic process in Canada. However this will be the subject of another debate.

I will go back to bill C-18. This bill deals with various issues, from plant breeders' protection to the reinforcement of border security mechanisms, as well as increased access to the advance payments program. Therefore, this bill deals with several issues that are important to our farmers and, by extension, to our fellow citizens. This is why the NDP will support bill C-18 at second reading.

It is important to us that this bill be examined in detail. Indeed, even though we support some measures included in the bill, we believe that they should be studied in depth, as if often the case when the Conservatives introduce an omnibus bill, regardless of what they want Canadians to believe. Various experts have already given their opinion on this and are calling for amendments. The NDP thinks that we should take the time we need to hear them. We must invite experts who wish to speak on the issues included in bill C-18. As parliamentarians, we must also listen to the concerns of the farmers in our ridings to try and come up with the best bill possible.

As we all know, it is simply not in the Conservatives' DNA to collaborate, to negotiate and to look for improvements. Still, we hope that some of that may happen if the bill is sent to committee. This bill needs to benefit all farmers and producers, as well as all Canadians.

As I said, the NDP supports parts of the bill. A few provisions address the concerns of the people from my riding of Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier. We are in a rural area with numerous family farms, spread over the Portneuf RCM, the Jacques-Cartier RCM and the town of Saint-Augustin-de-Desmaures.

Constituents and producers often contact me to discuss agricultural issues. Access to funding is a challenge, as is probably the case in many parts of the country. I am sure that everyone in the House who represents a rural riding hears similar complaints from their constituents.

It is good to know, then, that Bill C-18 improves access to the advance payments program. This would make it easier for producers to access credit through cash advances. Accordingly, producers would be better able to meet all their financial obligations throughout the year, while improving their access to cash. New credit options would also be available to producers whose farm is not their main source of income to support their families.

All of these important changes address my constituents' concerns. However, as I mentioned at the outset, we are dealing yet again with an omnibus bill.

Some of the measures it contains warrant some reworking. They would benefit from expert advice from people who really know the field and work in it every day. That is why we would like to refer the bill to committee. We would like to take the time to do the work we were elected to the House of Commons to do.

There is one problem that deserves to be revisited that I would like to see studied in committee. I am talking about the fact that this bill gives the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food more discretionary powers.

In fact, if passed as is, Bill C-18 would allow the minister to change various provisions of the bill without having to go through the House. He would not need approval from parliamentarians from all the parties. He could simply do it all by regulation. We see that provision quite often in Conservative bills. Frankly, this provision is a concern for the NDP.

This government has shown us many times that we cannot trust it. Here again, it is asking us to give it carte blanche, to give carte blanche to the minister who was at the helm during the XL Foods crisis, the minster who allowed major cuts at the Food Inspection Agency and who allowed the number of inspectors to be cut. The inspectors' jobs are to ensure the health of Canadians, to ensure that we all have access to high-quality food that is not contaminated. It is under this minister that the lives of hundreds and thousands of Canadians were put at risk during the XL Foods crisis. That caused panic here because the government was unable to guarantee the Food Inspection Agency the necessary resources to allow it to do its job properly.

Here again, with the bill before us, we are being asked to trust a minister who has shown his incompetence more than once. Frankly, this needs to be studied in committee again. We need to hear from experts on this aspect of the bill and various other aspects that are controversial and should be improved. We are not saying that we want this bill to be withdrawn completely or that it should never be passed. We are asking the government to show good faith and agree to work with members of the other parties. We also represent farmers, people who are familiar with the problems addressed in the bill, people who deserve to be heard as well as taken into consideration. They should be reflected in the bill that is passed in the House. If we pass Bill C-18 in its current form, that will not be the case.

Personally, when I travel through my riding, Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, no one tells me that ministers in the Conservative government should have more discretionary powers because they trust the government. I never hear that in my riding. Quite honestly, most of the time I hear how anxious people are for 2015 to come, so we can be rid of this government.

Aside from that, I have had the opportunity to meet with people from my riding and from ridings across Quebec and Canada. Canadians are worried about the decisions this government is making. It often makes unilateral decisions that do not leave room for opposition or constructive suggestions from the opposition. We know that our job is not simply to criticize. We also suggest solutions and improvements. That generally happens in committee and in the House when we participate in debates that no other parties participate in. We understand our job as MPs. I think it is unfortunate that the Conservatives take their jobs for granted. They do not feel the need to rise and defend their constituents. We saw that with the debate on Bill C-6, when all we heard was yelling from backbench MPs and the same question repeated over and over by the same hon. member on the other side. I strongly suspect that Bill C-18 will only be debated by New Democrat members who care about protecting Canadians and who want to ensure that we all have access to good quality food.

We are the only party that has proposed a global strategy to address the challenges facing farmers and food safety. No other party in the House has addressed this issue. The NDP's objective is to ensure that we can promote sustainable farming communities, support local agriculture, promote safety and transparency in the food protection system and make healthy food accessible to all Canadians.

That is what we want to accomplish here, and that is what we want to accomplish in trying to improve Bill C-18.

[Pierre Nantel, NDP, Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate my colleague on her well-informed and heartfelt speech. We can tell that she has people in her riding who are dealing with these issues. I was in her part of the country about two weeks ago, in fact. I visited Cap-Santé, which is a magnificent place.

It seems to me that she is in a better position than most to talk about what farmers are going through. I expect that issues related to heritage seed saving and protection of varieties are of great interest to people.

Is this the kind of issue my colleague would like the committee to take a closer look at?

[Élaine Michaud, NDP, Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to begin by thanking my colleague for a very good question and his kind words about my riding. The people of Cap-Santé will be very happy to know that honourable colleagues like mine enjoy spending time in our lovely riding. Cap-Santé is indeed magnificent, but there are also 27 other municipalities in the riding of Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier that I would encourage my colleagues to visit.

To get back to my colleague's question, this is a question that many people have been asking—not just farmers but people like me and like everyone here who eats food every day. They are worried about preserving our heritage seeds and all of the work that our farmers have done over the years. They want to protect that heritage and not leave everything to big companies like Monsanto.

My constituents are very worried about that. They are pleased with the NDP's efforts on behalf of all aspects of agriculture. A little earlier, I mentioned our comprehensive strategy for healthy, high-quality food for all Canadians. One of my colleagues recently introduced a motion to ensure that genetically modified organisms are labelled. All the work accomplished by my NDP colleagues is applauded by the people of Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier and of other rural ridings as well. They expect us to do the same work in committee in order to improve Bill C-18.

[Ruth Ellen Brosseau, NDP, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I sincerely want to thank my colleague for her speech this evening. I know that she works very hard in her riding. She is a strong voice in the House of Commons. We are almost neighbours.

One out of every eight jobs is created in Canada's agriculture and agri-food sector. It is a truly important sector of the economy because it creates jobs in the regions.

I wanted to point out yet again that this is an omnibus bill. We support certain aspects of the bill but, once again, we have fears and concerns. A number of members from all parties in the House presented petitions about adopting the UPOV convention in 1991.

I want to know whether my colleague could comment again on the fact that this is an omnibus bill. Can we really trust this government and the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food, who bungled a number of files such as XL Foods, listeriosis and grain transportation? Can she elaborate on this subject?

[Élaine Michaud, NDP, Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for that excellent question.

To ask the question is to answer it. As we have seen, we cannot trust this government, and we can trust the minister even less. My colleague spoke about the various crises that Agriculture and Agri-food Canada has experienced since 2011 alone. This government has been in power for far too long, and that is not the first crisis we have faced.

Giving more discretionary power to this government and to the current minister is ridiculous. He has demonstrated his incompetence on more than one occasion. I recently heard him direct some absolutely disgusting comments to my colleague from Alfred-Pellan in response to one of her questions. This colleague represents a riding that is both rural and urban, and he did not seem to get that at all. If he does not understand that, I do not see how he could logically and sensibly exercise the discretionary powers that he would have under Bill C-18. I hope that we can review this provision and amend it as quickly as possible.

[Robert Chisholm, NDP, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague from Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier for sharing her time with me. With respect to the work she has been doing on this and other issues in her constituency, she easily could have spoken for the full time. Therefore, I appreciate her sharing that time with me.

I am pleased with the work the critics for our caucus, the MP for Welland and the NDP for Berthier—Maskinongé, have done on this file. They have done an absolutely tremendous job.

I will spend a few minutes of my allotted 10 minutes speaking about the leadership they have shown on the whole question of a pan-Canadian food strategy, how important it is for our country and how proud I am as a member of this caucus to have those two critics working on this file.

Let me speak for a minute about Bill C-18. As has been said, it is an omnibus bill but, lo and behold, all of the nine bills it would affect actually have something to do with agriculture, which is unique. Usually we see omnibus bills from the government that cover everything from soup to nuts and have nothing to do with each other. There is no connection whatsoever, no matter how much of an imagination one has. However, this one does.

That having been said, it is very complicated. There are some issues in here with which we agree. Some issues like the plant breeders' rights, farmers' privilege and issues like that are not without controversy. People are concerned with the whole question of how much money would be taken out of the pockets of farmers at the beginning and the end of the day. We need to hear more about that issue.

Other issues, like the advance payment program, that come under the Agriculture Marketing Programs Act are good ideas. However, we look forward to the bill getting to committee so it and our critics can consult with Canadians about what we need to do to ensure the bill would be a benefit to farmers and would benefit food production in our country, rather than be a detriment.

Since the Conservatives have come to office, we have lost over 8,000 small farms in our country? Imagine that. It is phenomenal.

I am from Nova Scotia. I spent a great deal of my young life, from the age of nine up until my early twenties, working on farms, a lot of that time in the fruit tree area. That is an area which Nova Scotia has become well-known, not only across the country but around the world, for our ability to identify not only new technologies in variety, but also in planting, harvesting, marketing apples, in particular, and other areas.

I am very concerned with the direction that the current and previous governments have gone in this area. That is why I am so pleased and proud that my colleagues have come forward with a pan-Canadian food strategy. We call it “Farm to fork”. If anyone is interested in taking a look at it, they can go to my website or to my Facebook page, or they can go to NDP.ca to take a look at that and sign a petition.

We should be ashamed of the fact that Canada is without a comprehensive food policy. We are lagging behind other industrialized countries in the OECD, like England and Australia. The United Nations itself has raised serious concerns about food security in the aboriginal community and the lack of a coordinated food strategy in this country.

New Democrats have picked up on that. We recognize that there is a problem. We recognize that there is a lack of vision. We have come forward with a strategy that deals with our food system, one that connects Canadians from the farm to the fork. We are calling on the Government of Canada to implement a pan-Canadian food strategy that would do the following: promote sustainable agricultural communities, support local agriculture, foster thriving agricultural businesses, ensure safety and transparency, and make healthy food accessible to all Canadians. It is about leadership and it is something that we need to do to move forward.

I am looking forward to sharing some of the aspects of this piece of legislation with my friends and former colleagues in Nova Scotia to get some of their insight into this. I will be interested in listening in on some of the hearings that will be held probably next fall, maybe sooner. The committee might do a cross-country tour over the summer, but I am not sure.

Canadians are interested in farms, food production, the kind of resources that farmers have available to them, and the whole issue of food security in aboriginal communities, coastal communities, and smaller communities throughout this country. Urban Canada will have an opportunity to participate in this and provide input. People will be able to look closely at the pan-Canadian strategy that we introduced and will be talking about. I will be talking about it with the people of Dartmouth--Cole Harbour. I will certainly share it with people throughout Nova Scotia.

This is an important but complicated piece of legislation. It would bring together nine pieces of legislation. Let me go through those nine pieces of legislation: the Plant Breeders' Rights Act, the Feeds Act, the Fertilizers Act, the Seeds Act, the Health of Animals Act, the Plant Protection Act, the Agriculture and Agri-Food Administrative Monetary Penalties Act, the Agricultural Marketing Programs Act including transitional provisions, and the Farm Debt Mediation Act.

These are important issues. We would like to see the government make these issues clearer to Canadians. We would like to see the government connect the dots. A pan-Canadian food strategy would present a vision to Canadians, to farmers, and to people concerned about food security. Canadians would be able to better understand the philosophy behind all of this legislation and the regulations as they affect the farming sector and the whole question of food security.

This is an interesting omnibus bill. It is not like the ones that I have talked about before that the government has presented. It all ties together but it is complicated. I look forward to Bill C-18 going to committee where it will be examined and many Canadians will have an opportunity to provide their input.

[Annick Papillon, NDP, Québec, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to my honourable colleague's speech.

With regard to Bill C-18, I would like to commend the Quebec chapter of Friends of the Earth with whom I participated in a protest on May 24. The purpose of this protest was to give people an opportunity to express their concerns about this bill.

This omnibus bill contains many components. We strongly denounce this Conservative tactic because this is another bill that contains so many measures that it is impossible to break it down and identify which elements we can agree with and which ones we cannot. I deplore the fact that the Conservatives are once again introducing an omnibus bill.

I was listening to my colleague and I was wondering what he thought about the Conservatives' approach. They have done this several times. They introduce an omnibus bill containing a large number of measures rather than taking the time to break it down in such a way that we can come up with the best bill possible.

If we need to split the bill into a number of different parts, we should do so.

[Robert Chisholm, NDP, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague is absolutely right that there are parts of the bill that have caused some concern among people in the industry.

It is an omnibus bill. There are, as I said, nine pieces of legislation in it. There are some things that we like and some things that we do not like. There are other things that we do not understand, and we will need to consult.

My point is yes, it is an omnibus bill, but at least all of the parts tie together somehow, which is different, which is unique. Usually with the omnibus bills that the government brings in, one part does not have anything to do with the other part. They include everything from soup to nuts, is the expression I use.

The bill is complicated. It does have to be examined very carefully. We do have to make sure that people in our constituencies concerned about food security, concerned about food production, have the opportunity to have their say.

[Francine Raynault, NDP, Joliette, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for his speech and for the work that he does in the House and in his riding.

Had a member opposite made a speech, what question would my colleague have liked to ask him or her about Bill C-18?

[Robert Chisholm, NDP, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Mr. Speaker, let me say how much I appreciate the kind words from my colleague.

There are a couple of questions I would ask my colleagues opposite, if they were ever to rise to their feet on an issue like this. There are some issues around the whole question of planters' rights that affect research. There is a question of whether small farmers in particular will have access to the research and the support to be able to do research themselves on plant variety and other things.

What confidence can we have in the government and in the minister that the resources will be put in place, whether that be Agriculture Canada or CFIA? What confidence can we or small farmers out there have that the government will back up what it is saying about providing the necessary resources?

It is a key question I have and will continue to have, and I am sure my colleague, the agriculture critic from the NDP, will be able to put that question forward.

[Mike Sullivan, NDP, York South—Weston, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise to speak today about Bill C-18, an act to amend certain acts—there are nine of them apparently—relating to agriculture and agri-food.

I heard someone across yell out the word “constituents”, and I do have a number of constituents. Not very many of them have to do with agriculture and agri-food. However, I am surprised because I do know there are a number of members opposite who represent large rural ridings in Saskatchewan and Alberta, and yet they are not speaking on this bill. Do their constituents not wish their members of Parliament to speak on their behalf?

What is going on here? It seems rather strange. If I represented a number of farmers, which I do not, I would want to speak on their behalf on a bill as important as this one. I am going to say that this bill is important, and there are a number of good measures in this bill that we support. There are some problems with it.

However, before we get into the issues that we do and do not support, I want to say that this past weekend, I attended the grand opening of the Weston farmers market. It is a place where farmers gather in my riding, directly across from my office in fact, to sell, and they have done this for the past 32 years.

This farmers market is probably one of the most successful around. There is no cover. There is no shelter. It is a parking lot in the old town of Weston. A number of farmers descend on it, and they are literally picking the night before. These are farmers from all over southwestern Ontario, who come to the riding with the freshest of produce, the freshest of eggs, butter, fruit, vegetables, flowers, and more. There are bakers, coffee makers, and the whole gamut of people who come to a farmers market. Grandpa Ken, who sells back bacon on a bun every morning is a hit. Obviously he gets his back bacon from a pig farmer somewhere in southern Ontario.

The point is that these farmers are successful because they are able to turn their products into money. That is really what is going on; they are earning cash. However, part of this bill sometimes makes it more difficult for farmers to turn their products into money and to survive. That is one of the reasons we want to examine this bill very carefully.

We would hope that the Conservatives would be willing to support amendments to this bill, so that we can fix the problems we find with it. That is one of the reasons we have this debate, so that we can express what we feel are the problems with this bill, and we can hear from the other side what their arguments might be to suggest that we are reading it wrong and that it means this.

We do not hear any of that from the other side. We hear some rumblings and some mumblings, but not a heck of a lot of articulate debate from that side of the House.

My riding is an urban riding. It is a very poor riding. One of the features of my riding is that food security is a very serious problem. There is an organization called Frontlines, which is run by the Baptist church, and is spending a lot of its time teaching 10 and 11-year-old boys how to cook for their families because they are the primary caregiver of a family.

Now, that is heartbreaking when we realize that is who is doing all of the cooking. We have a system in this riding where people teach these kids how to cook. They cannot teach them how to have more money to buy better food, but we are trying. We are trying with a number of organizations that have created small market gardens in the riding. There are individuals who—

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Peace River, AB]

Somebody get the guy some notes.

[Mike Sullivan, NDP, York South—Weston, ON]

Mr. Speaker, does the member want my notes?

There are individuals who are planting in allotments all over the riding, and they are growing. In fact, they are growing by leaps and bounds. However, this bill might actually get in the way of some of that, particularly if some of the seeds that people are using become more expensive as a result of that—

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Peace River, AB]

How is that?

[Dan Harris, NDP, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

I see one of them finally woke up.

[Chris Alexander, Conservative, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

How do you feel about GMOs?

[Mike Sullivan, NDP, York South—Weston, ON]

Mr. Speaker, yes, they woke up.

Another issue is raised in this bill, which is the financial ability of CFIA to monitor and enforce the regulations and the legislation that it is being given. I would like to give members an example from my riding of what I believe is a failure of CFIA.

We hear a lot of failures of CFIA in terms of the use of contaminated in meat in Canada. We have heard of some other failures of CFIA—

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Peace River, AB]

Thank you for bringing the notes.

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

There they go.

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Richmond Hill, ON]

Just hot off the printer.

[Chris Alexander, Conservative, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

Hand delivered.

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Peace River, AB]

You will get onto the right bill eventually.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Order, please. I know the day is getting on, but the Standing Orders do require that only one member at a time has the floor. There is a reason for that. It is so that other hon. members will have the opportunity to hear what the member who has been recognized has to say.

The hon. member for York South—Weston.