Mr. Speaker, it truly is my pleasure to rise in the House today to speak to Bill C-18, an act to amend certain acts relating to agriculture and agri-food.
I am sure many in the House are scratching their head and wondering why the MP for Sudbury, whose community is known for mining and being a hard rock city, would speak to this legislation. We have a lot of farmers in my community, and agriculture is important. This is an important bill for us to debate in the House and I am honoured to speak to it. I also want to thank my hon. colleague, the MP for Welland, for his hard work on this file. He is our excellent critic for agriculture.
It is important for me to say that we support this legislation. We want to ensure that it gets to committee but we do have concerns. This is once again another Conservative omnibus bill. I guess I could merge those two words together; “consermibus” is what I was trying to say a minute ago.
This legislation would make changes to nine different pieces of legislation. As with previous omnibus bills, there are measures that we support in Bill C-18 and there are those that we see as posing significant concerns for the agriculture sector.
Many of the proposed changes requested by various stakeholders deserve thorough debate and consideration. As I mentioned, we support the bill going to committee but we may not support it at further stages. We hope we can make some amendments. We hope to be able to bring forward some of the changes requested by stakeholders as well as some of their concerns.
It is important to recognize that when it comes to plant breeders' rights, New Democrats believe that we need to look at a balanced approach. A balanced approach to this is essential. We want to protect Canada's farmers and the public researchers who are involved in this. We understand the role of intellectual property rights. We understand it is important to encourage innovation. We want to ensure that all Canadians can access and benefit from our agriculture legacy. We need to ensure that the bill is studied in more detail so we can find out how producers would be impacted by some of the proposed changes.
There are concerns about safety controls over seeds, plants, and animals. The CFIA would likely require additional resources. The cuts made by the Conservative government in the past to CFIA are concerning. We want to ensure that this is addressed and that there would no longer be any gaps in enforcement, especially when it comes to some of the safety measures that are involved in this.
We would all agree that farmers are the backbone of Canada's food system. It does not matter ultimately the colour of one's tie, such as the one I am wearing today, as to how we perceive our farmers. Members of all parties want our farmers to earn a decent living and produce quality food for Canadian families.
We have a great organization in my riding of Sudbury called Eat Local. Approximately 30 to 40 local producers provide food to Eat Local in Sudbury. Let me just talk about a few of them.
Les jardins Blondin specializes in ecologically grown greens, radishes, and assorted produce. Rowantree Farms, Heart and Soil Gardens, Piebird and Soggy Creek Seed, Ouelette et Fils, and Mountain Lake Bison Range are other producers that provide food to Eat Local. Many of these great organizations in my riding are doing great work when it comes to ensuring that we have local produce. It is important for us to ensure that farmers and companies like those that I mentioned in my riding and those right across the country continue to prosper.
Many of those I have met at Eat Local are modern farmers as well. As parliamentarians we need to ensure that we link them to cutting-edge research and technology. Canadians deserve practical policies that can grow our rural economies and foster sustainable agricultural communities.
As I mentioned earlier, when it comes to plant breeders' rights, the official opposition believes that balance is essential.
However, we do have some concerns when it comes to public research. We want to ensure that the incredible contributions that are being made by our agriculture sector remain competitive and benefit all Canadians. Therefore, it is essential that the federal government support publicly funded research, especially for farmers.
I am going to talk a bit now about some of the specifics of the bill. Bill C-18 would protect the rights of researchers to use patent materials for non-commercial uses. However, given the government's defunding of public research and its focus on public-private funding partnerships and linking research to commercialization, it is our opinion on this side of the House that it is unclear if the provisions as written would effectively protect research. Public plant research has made numerous contributions to the Canadian agriculture community, and it is our opinion that it is essential that support for public research be maintained. Therefore, one of the things we want to ensure is that the government will continue to support public research and it would not be hindered in the bill at all.
Canada is moving toward ratification of the 1991 model law of the international union for the protection of new varieties of plants, UPOV '91, which expands the rights afforded to plant breeders for varieties they develop and increases the places along the value chain where plant breeders can collect royalties. Bill C-18 includes the following new exclusion rights for plant breeders: reproduction, conditioning, sale, export or import, and repeated use to produce commercially another plant variety if the repetition is necessary for that purpose. It also includes stocking for the purpose of any other protected acts. The term of the grant of plant breeders' rights would also be increased from 18 years to 20 years, or 25 years in the case of a tree, vine, or any other category listed by the regulations. This also includes a new clause that would grant farmers' privilege. That would allow farmers to save seed and condition seed for purposes of production and reproduction on their own farm. We see that as important. This privilege would not be extended to the storing of seed, or to the sale of harvested material from protected seed.
Bill C-18 would grant CFIA the ability to make changes through regulation to which circumstances and classes of farmers and varieties would not be covered under the farmers' privilege. It would also protect the rights of researchers to use patented materials as the basis for developing a new variety or another research use, and it would enhance the public accessibility to the registry of plant varieties. This is a major change from the previous act.
One of the benefits we see in the bill is that granting farmers' privilege, to allow farmers to save and condition seed for use on their own farms, really would promote access. That is one of the important things for Canadian farmers, especially if we are looking at the results of private breeding research in Canada and other countries through effective intellectual property rights.
This is an important bill for all of us, all parties and all members, to stand up and speak to and debate. Even though I come from what many perceive as a mining community, we do also have some great local producers. I also tip my hat to Eat Local Sudbury, which is doing such a great job of promoting local produce and local foods and making sure that, if we needed to, we could survive on what we are growing in northern Ontario.
I look forward to questions and comments.