Vic Althouse

[Petitions, February 6th, 1995]

Madam Speaker, I have a petition from residents of my constituency who point out that a very vocal minority of citizens are requesting Parliament to institute a dual marketing system for wheat and barley for export.

The petitioners humbly request that Parliament continue the wheat board monopoly powers for marketing wheat and barley and that it extend them to include all grains and oilseeds.

[Canadian Potato Marketing Act, February 6th, 1995]

moved that Bill C-266, an act respecting the orderly marketing of potatoes, be read the second time and referred to a legislative committee.

Mr. Speaker, I am proposing a private member's bill today that would have the effect of creating a national marketing agency for potatoes.

As I go through the reasons for the bill members will see that probably there are simpler ways of dealing with this problem. However because Parliament in the past 20 years has been loath to adopt a simpler way and has forced the dealing of national agencies commodity by commodity, I am following that process.

During the course of my remarks I will point out a simpler way. First let us recall that marketing boards are a relatively new method of dealing with the bargaining power vis-à-vis sellers and buyers. It dates back to the 1930s when New Zealand, Australia and the United Kingdom brought in marketing board legislation. Canada followed shortly thereafter with its first major marketing board, the wheat marketing board, introduced by a Conservative government in 1935.

The wheat board still exists. It has only undergone a few minor amendments and changes in the intervening years. Numerous provincial boards and agencies exist across the country with only a handful of agencies operating on a national basis. Chicken, turkey, eggs, hatching eggs and dairy products join wheat and barley, and western wheat and barley at that, as products marketed by national marketing agencies.

I argue this is a very slow progress. Agricultural producers are being forced to adopt very ancient means as private individuals in what has become a huge international market. Buyers have control in dozens of countries, being the principal buyers, and

the bargaining power between the buyers and sellers is not even close to equal.

Even though some people might argue that the new information technology permits people on farms to link into the latest marketing information. Information alone does not provide those farmers with the ultimate marketing power that they require, namely, to be able to fill a whole shipload of a product and to provide hundreds of boxcar loads of the product to a particular purchaser in the required time, of the required volumes and grades necessary. Only an agency acting on behalf of all of the producers can hope to perform that function.

The fact that information is a little faster now than it was in the 1930s does not address the real problem of marketing, which is the ability to put together large amounts of product to fit the needs of the very large corporate buyers that are buying internationally these days.

In the 1970s Parliament had an opportunity to put a bill before the country that would permit the various provincial marketing boards. These have to be put together on a provincial basis because, as members know, agriculture production is under the aegis of the provinces in our Constitution.

It is only when the product is marketed across borders that the federal sphere is infringed on and federal rights are taken into account. Therefore provincial marketing boards that wish to market product that is handled by a marketing board in another province have to apply to the federal jurisdiction for the power to go beyond their borders.

This is usually granted relatively simply. However it does not take away the problem that exists for all commodities not already under a national plan of competing one province against the other.

I was involved in the early 1970s in putting together a marketing board for hogs in the province of Saskatchewan. It was at about the same time that similar boards were put together in Manitoba, Alberta and British Columbia. They each followed the example of Ontario a few years previous to that.

We had worked very hard to come together as those four western provinces to offer hogs to foreign and domestic buyers over one desk. We had political agreement. We had agreement from the farmers involved. Yet when the final signatures were required on all the multitude of agreements that this required, the heads of each of the boards found it very difficult to put their signatures to paper because that would have seen the demise of at least three of the positions. We do not need four presidents in order to run one regional marketing board. It fell down at that level.

We need some federal guidelines and federal guidance if we are going to be able to achieve the coming together that is required if producers of the various commodities are going to be efficient and useful in meeting the market trends that are out there right now.

The marketing board concept is really not much different for those who are interested in history of marketing than the power the state gave four and five hundred years ago to corporations. It is a power that over time has been granted to corporations simply on application.

Even up to 30 or 40 years ago to strike a new corporation, the provisional board of directors had to come to the House of Commons and the Senate in order for that corporation to be set in motion and to be created. That has not been the case for many decades.

Yet in order for farmers to form an organization that would have similar powers in the marketplace, this ancient institution still requires that a special bill be prepared and that special requirements be made. We still have to be very cognizant of the federal-provincial powers. We have to go through the process of proposing, as I am, a shell of an agency that would be able to function nationally that the provincial agencies can link into.

Passing this legislation would not instantly create a national marketing agency. It would only be an effective national agency when the provincial marketing boards decide to avail themselves of the powers that are there in the federal act which would be passed.

This slow, cumbersome process could have been sped up if in the early 1970s when the farm products marketing councils were established, and the national farm products marketing act which brought those agencies into effect had permitted the usage of national legislation for all farm products. However, there was some agitation on the part of mainly Alberta cattlemen concerning rights to establish an agency that would include management of supply, which is only a normal thing for any marketing agency.

Ask General Motors, Ford or Beatrice Foods. Any of the big players always have a good handle on their supplies. They are manufacturing the product. They make certain they do not manufacture or process more than they have sales for. They make certain they are able to manage the product so it arrives at the customer's door on the day the customer wants it; not later, not sooner, right on time. This is the kind of service the marketing boards have performed and can perform for producers who are part of a marketing agency.

The problem with the provincial agencies is that they often are not large enough to meet the kind of bargaining conditions of the corporations they deal with. Most of the processors and handlers of potatoes are huge international conglomerates. They have access to markets all over the world. When dealing with a

little potato board from Prince Edward Island or Manitoba the farmers very quickly find that they do not have very much clout when it comes to dictating terms of price and terms and conditions of how many potatoes will be produced, how they will be produced and what price the processor will pay for them. The people who are handling fresh potatoes to supermarket also have extremely large bargaining clout in that there are very few supermarket chains across North America that the producers must face on a day to day basis.

The marketing agency can provide the management of the product to the final destination on time and at the most beneficial price to the producer rather than always at the behest of the various buyers who can very quickly take advantage of a day when individual producers through their own unco-ordinated activities may be offering-usually they are offering-far more product on any given day than the system needs. Therefore they are always accepting a much less than optimal price because they are presenting for sale far more product than they are able to sell and deliver. As far as the buyer is concerned that surplus of product is always available to them. They take advantage of that, keeping the price lower than it would otherwise be.

Management of supply is more possible under marketing boards. I would note that we have other ways of managing supply. Notable and somewhat ironic, given their long opposition to any legislation that would permit supply management for all general farm products including beef, are the official cattlemen associations based in Alberta and to a certain extent in southwestern Saskatchewan. They have always argued that they are free marketers, that they do not want to have anything to do with supply management. It is ironic and somewhat instructive to note that they are probably one industry that has been very effective at controlling supplies into North America, particularly the Canada-U.S. markets. They have managed by other means to put political pressure where it matters and have limited on a consistent basis the amount of imports, whether from Ireland and the European economic community or whether from New Zealand and Australia. By setting quotas on those imports they are indulging in supply management.

The advantages of the seller versus the buyer are being eschewed by cattle producers in most areas right now. For some time there was a very effective marketing agency in Saskatchewan that was strictly voluntary where producers could market through the beef marketing commission and that gained quite a lot of acceptance and approval. However, for political reasons that was struck down by the government of Grant Devine a few years ago. Farmers are now back in the business of negotiating their own prices each day. They find, when they compare notes, that they are not being treated equitably for the same day's market.

I found when I began drafting this legislation that the simplest answer would have been to amend the Natural Products Marketing Act so that we pull out the sections the cattlemen insisted on being in there in the early 1970s which would have had the effect of permitting all fruits, vegetables, tobacco, farm products, honey, meats, cereals and oilseeds. Every farm product would have been the simplest solution but I was told that this would somehow impinge upon the royal prerogative because a small section of that act permits the government to finance such new agencies. Private members do not have the privilege of establishing a law or adding to a law that would perhaps cost the government some money out of the consolidated revenue fund.

I have had to resort to setting up what is, I admit, a shell agency that has no funds. It would simply exist and be funded by producers as the provincial agencies decide to become part of a national agency and use this as a forum or beginning again a debate as to whether producers of potatoes would have some benefit by using a national marketing agency.

This has been a program that many producers have engaged in several times in the last couple of decades. In the early 1970s there was a determined effort to put together a national marketing agency for potatoes. The legislation was being worked upon. The plan was being worked upon. A very detailed proposal was put forward. Somehow it fell apart. Twice since that time similar efforts have gone forward, only to be stopped at the political level.

I wish the new group of parliamentarians in the House now-almost 200 people who have never been here before-would again think about the issue, look at the possibilities here and bring agricultural marketing into the 20th if not the 21st century and bring us up to date with the corporate sector which for more than 500 years has had the ability to simply go to government and get immediate acceptance for its application to allow many people to come together under one agency and take advantage of all of the benefits that such a coming together reaps.

By persisting on keeping the old National Products Marketing Act which was flawed from the beginning on the books would be something like going back in time and saying corporations can be established but only to gather and market furs, because in Canada the Hudson Bay Company was one of the first corporations to function on our soil even though the idea of a corporation had existed in Europe some time before.

It is time for us to be brought up to date to permit our farmers to use all of the tools that their competitors and their opponents in the market have. I would urge members of Parliament to

consider giving that right to farmers to form national agencies for all products, but specifically here today for potatoes.

[Transport, December 13th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, with the publication of the Transportation Safety Board report, the Canadian public has again been made aware of the problems of the deregulation theory that Transport Canada has been pursuing for over a decade.

In spite of evidence to the contrary, transport ministers from Axworthy to Mazankowski and on to the current minister have insisted that "safety will not be compromised". NDP members have always argued that without regulation and adequate inspection staff, safety would inevitably take second place, particularly when carriers are strapped for cash. In such cases maintenance is reduced, accidents increase and consumers are at risk.

Since the department's strategy is in question I suggest that the minister take charge and ask someone like Judge Moshansky, who reported on the Dryden crash, to do a follow-up investigation to see if Transport Canada's inspections are now improved enough to correct the shortcomings previously identified.

[Bankruptcy Act, December 7th, 1994]

Madam Speaker, in this post-adjournment period I wish to reopen a question that I put to the minister of agriculture on Monday. I asked him whether there would be any changes in the government's policy toward the Canadian Wheat Board.

I asked this because during the election the Prime Minister was quite clear that the policy of the Liberals was to support the board. In the election that was quite important. There was a small group of farmers demanding a dual marketing system which would have had the effect of breaking the ability of the board to put prices on grain for western farmers.

Since that time the elections for the advisory committee have occurred. That election was openly fought between people who supported a strengthened board and those who wanted the board to either disappear or have very limited powers. As it turned out, 10 of the 11 positions on that advisory board were filled by people who supported a strengthened board. This is actually the strongest electoral situation the advisory committee has been in since it was first brought into being back in the mid-seventies when I happened to be a member of it.

The turnout was one of the heaviest that there has been. We have to remember this is a mail out ballot. A lot of the ballots never get opened. They get lost in the pile of mail that comes home. On average just over 46 per cent voted. This was one of the higher turnouts. In the two eastern provinces the turnout was considerably higher than in Alberta where it was just over a third of the farmers who actually voted.

I note that some of the board's detractors are saying that this does not tell anything because the turnout was not very high. I want to point out that even in Alberta where the return was only about 36 or 37 per cent, that is higher than the U.S. congressional elections which just changed the whole outlook of that Congress. It is higher than the normal presidential elections in the United States. Forty-six to 48 per cent which is what most of the provinces had for a turnout was much higher than we see in most municipal elections and occasionally in provincial elections. I do not think we can argue that this was not a legitimately elected group.

There are some special problems that face the board at the moment and I think this newly elected group should be utilized by the minister to look at some of those problems. New grains are something rye producers in particular have shown they are willing and ready to have included in the board's jurisdiction. The advisory committee should be given that as a question to look at.

It could also be asked to provide opinions on how to integrate organically produced grain and perhaps the question of grains milled on farm or by the owner of the grain, which is something organic producers particularly want to have looked at. This is a special niche market. The board has been occupied in developing these special situations.

I wanted to raise these in the post-adjournment debate because I think the minister is aware that there are many more things that the wheat board could be doing and I wanted to know whether the Prime Minister's assurances during the election campaign that he supports the board meant a stronger board, an expanding board, or simply a status quo kind of board. I hope the

result of the elections would give the minister the assurance that farmers are behind an expanded and growing wheat board.

[Canadian Wheat Board, December 5th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the same minister who has had a chance now to analyse the results of that same advisory committee election which demonstrated overwhelming support for pro-wheat board candidates.

Since the sole support for dual marketing and the subsequent weakening of the board's powers is clearly seen to be limited to a small minority special interest group, what action will he take to protect and reinforce the ability of the board to act in the best interests of the vast majority of producers who support the board?

[Canada Grain Act, December 5th, 1994]

moved:

Motion No. 6

That Bill C-51, in Clause 25, be amended

(a) by replacing line 16, on page 12, with the following:

"84. (1) Except with the written permission of";

(b) by adding after line 24, on page 12, the following:

"(2) Except with the written permission of the Commission or in accordance with prescribed terms and conditions, no public carrier shall transport grain unless it has first been weighed, the dockage established and the quality designated."

Mr. Speaker, technically this motion divides what is now section 84 in the act. The bill we have in front of us proposes to amend section 84 in the act into subsections (1) and (2). In clause 25 of the bill before us now it would become subsection 84(1) and we would add a subsection (2) which would read:

(2) Except with the written permission of the commission or in accordance with the prescribed terms and conditions, no public carrier shall transport grain unless it has first been weighed, the dockage established and the quality designated.

There are two reasons for this. One is to make it easier to track grains that might be subject to bankruptcy procedure and as well to look forward to the new technology which is now being introduced into western Canada. It is the portable elevator which is a very large tandem truck with two units behind it. It has the ability to weigh grain as it goes in. The truck driver does the dockage testing and provides a grade. It makes certain that particular process which some companies are now engaged in is done in a way that provides the kind of paperwork transactions that will protect the producer.

The prospect of watching 2,000 bushels of flax or peas walk off the farm maybe to disappear without the proper paperwork in the event that particular grain dealer turns out to not have been properly bonded is not one a farmer looks forward to. This attempts to address that by requiring these kinds of operations to do the same paperwork as elevators do.

[Canada Grain Act, December 5th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I have just a few short words on these amendments.

Motion No. 3 proposes to allow people who operate a primary or process elevator or who carry on business as a grain dealer without being licensed under this act to apply to the commission to be exempted under paragraph 17(b) of the act. In effect it sets out a class that is not particularly well defined which may apply for exemption under the Canada Grain Act. That is probably rather dangerous for us.

We would probably be better to await a specialty crops act and deal with these kinds of issues properly. There is the possibility for the kind of anomaly that was raised by our friends from the Bloc. One of the large players might decide to opt out. It would make the whole marketing practice that Canada has been engaged in since the turn of the century very suspect.

What we have now is a system where product identification is absolutely secure. It is guaranteed in Canada. This is one of the tools that Canada has used for almost 100 years to break into markets. We are the quality product. We have made Canadian grains similar to what the Mercedes Benz is to cars.

We have to take some care in allowing people to opt out. I am sure that McDonald's would not permit some of its franchisees to opt out and still go on selling Big Macs. We have not designated with this opting out process whether Canada No. 1 can still be sold as Canada No. 1 even though there is a disclaimer on the bill of lading saying that the dealer did not comply with the Canada Grain Act. Customers are not going to understand this. It is only going to reflect badly on all Canadian farm produce. We would be just as well to stay away from it.

[Canada Grain Act, December 5th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, I was listening to the last debate and I wanted to clarify which motions had been grouped. My understanding is that it was Motions Nos. 2, 4 and 5. I believe the hon. member was talking about Motion No. 6. It confuses the debate to have him opposing something we may not yet be talking about.

[Canada Grain Act, December 5th, 1994]

moved:

Motion No. 2

That Bill C-51, in Clause 12, be amended by replacing lines 37 and 38, on page 6, with the following:

"et or receipt relates within one hundred and eighty days after the day on which".

Motion No. 4

That Bill C-51, in Clause 19, be amended by replacing line 9, on page 11, with the following:

"grain in a licensed primary elevator, licensed terminal elevator or li".

Motion No. 5

That Bill C-51, in Clause 22, be amended by replacing lines 33 to 40, on page 11, with the following:

"81. (1) With respect to the purchase of western grain from the producer of that grain, every licensed grain dealer shall, at the prescribed time and in the prescribed manner,

(a) issue a grain receipt, elevator receipt or cash purchase ticket stating the grade name, grade and dockage of the grain, and immediately provide it to the producer, or

(b) where no Canada grade name is applicable to the grain, issue a grain receipt, elevator receipt or cash purchase ticket stating the type of grain by name, value of the grain and dockage of the grain, and immediately provide it to the producer."

Mr. Speaker, these motions propose to achieve two things. One is to extend the time that grain may be left in an elevator before it is priced. In effect it will be extending the time from 90 to 180 days and provides additional protection to the farmer who left the grain for storage up to the 180 days.

This is a reduction from the current law in which the protection lasts for one year. It would cut the time in half. The effect on farmers is that it forces them to price grain more quickly than is currently required. Ninety days in my estimation and in the estimation of a lot of producers is not a great deal of time. It forces them to unload the grain that has been delivered to commercial storage to await a price.

Second, Motions Nos. 4 and 5 have the effect of including the designation, "elevator receipt" in the choices of paperwork that might be engaged in on delivery of grain to the various receivers.

It is extremely important that an official elevator receipt be available on demand for the producer. I remind the House that the elevator receipt means a document in the prescribed form issued in respect of grain delivered to an elevator acknowledging receipt of the grain and subject to any conditions contained therein or in this act, entitling the holder of the document, who now be the farmer; (a) to delivery of grain of the same kind, grade and quantity as the grain referred to in the document or; (b) in the case of a document issued for specially binned grain, which is another designation under the act, to deliver the identical grain.

With the inclusion of an elevator receipt we are permitting the producer to retain the exact amount and type of grain he has delivered. He has not yet given up ownership of it. He has only put it in storage and started it into the system.

This is important in the event a grain dealer goes into bankruptcy. It permits the farmer to extract his grain from the institution and safeguards against what can only be described as rip-offs that have occurred in the past.

Prior to the grains act being changed a couple of years ago, some processors actually accumulated thousands of bushels of grain and collected credit on them, when bankrupt, using the grains to relieve some of the elements of their debt. In effect

they were transferring the ownership of that grain from the farmer to themselves without any money having changed hands.

These amendments are designed to provide adequate protection for producers who use the wide variety of choices under the grains act. Therefore no matter what their choice they would have the same recourse to protection by the demand for the issuance of an elevator receipt. With my amendments this would give the producer the protection and knowledge that he would still be the owner and would still have the right to the sale of that grain.

[Canada Grain Act, December 5th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with care to the member for Frontenac. While I agree with his sentiments, he is attempting to define a role for the agriculture committee in the appointment of personnel for boards such as the grain commission.

In reading the motion carefully I see that the amount of leeway available to the agriculture committee is very limited. Essentially all its members will be doing is deciding among the three to five people who currently are appointed to the commission which would be the chief commissioner and which would be the assistant chief. I get that reading in either language.

Essentially what you will have, even if this becomes part of the law, is the governor in council or the cabinet appointing the three to five commissioners. After that process is finished the agriculture committee or designate would then recommend to the agriculture minister and to the governor in council, the cabinet, which of those three to five-however large the commission happens to be at the choice of the government of the day-would be the chief commissioner and which would be the assistants.

That is not particularly important. I have no objection to it going into the bill but it does not change the power of members of the committee to decide which of a bunch of Liberal appointees, Conservative appointees, Reform appointees, or Bloc appointees might be considered the chief and which would be the assistant chief in the event that the chief could not act.

I liked the arguments that the hon. member for Frontenac made when he argued that committees should have more power in the management of these commissions by proposing names. Unfortunately that is not what the proposed motion does. It only picks the three to five appointees and ranks them. That is really not a very important job even though it might set a bit of a precedent.