Malcolm Allen

[Petitions, May 16th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, the third petition speaks to Bill C-18 and farmers' right to save seeds. The petitioners point out that the inherent right to save seeds must be protected, as it has been for all time. Farmers are asking for that to continue in the future. Petitioners are asking the government to make sure that this right is protected under Bill C-18 as we move forward.

[Petitions, May 16th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, the second petition talks about pollinators, bees, and the fact that bee colonies are suffering irreparable harm, not only across our country but across the world. The petitioners are calling on the government to do expanded research into the nature of the disruption to bee colonies and their deaths, whether that be from a particular pesticide or herbicide, or some sort of colony collapse. They call for fundamental research to find out what exactly is going on.

[Petitions, May 16th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I have three petitions to present, all agriculture-related, it seems.

The first petition calls for a moratorium on GM alfalfa. The petitioners call on the government to recognize that GM alfalfa is a crop that is not wanted, not specifically just by organic groups but by many conventional farmers across the country.

[Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, May 15th, 2014]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-598, An Act to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act and the Corrections and Conditional Release Act (notification of victims).

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to present this bill for consideration. It will protect victims whose perpetrators of crime now find themselves in the immigration and refugee system versus the criminal system.

If we deport people who then come back into this country and we detain them under an immigration warrant, the victims are not notified that the perpetrators are back in the country. If the perpetrators of crimes are Canadian citizens the victims would be notified as to where they are. However, if they happen to be foreign nationals who were deported and have entered the country illegally, the system does not afford the victims the right to know that their perpetrators are back in the country. This bill would correct that injustice so that regardless of where the perpetrators are, whether they are foreign nationals or nationals, whether they are in this country illegally or legally, whether they are detained in either system, the victims have the absolute right to know.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)

[Pensions, May 7th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, the Auditor General noted that he found a pattern across the Conservative government. It was a pattern of simply reacting to events, not planning and thinking of the longer term. In particular, he looked at the public sector pensions.

The President of the Treasury Board has already actually nodded in agreement and said that he agrees with the Auditor General's report, but can he tell us how he got into a situation where there is no long-term analysis of these three pension plans to ensure that they are actually sustainable for the longer term for those beneficiaries and for Canadian taxpayers?

[Northern Economic Development Agency, May 6th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, there is another area of mismanagement, and that is the Canadian Northern Economic Development Agency. It is just another example of the government's mismanagement. The Auditor General reported it failed to assess the project eligibility, failed to require reports from recipients and even failed to measure its own performance, like the receipt for a $31,000 truck, oops, missing. Yet is anyone held to account? No, not in the least.

Is the minister aware that CanNor is being used as a potential slush fund in northern Canada?

[Fair Rail for Grain Farmers Act, May 1st, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, there were a number of suggestions as to where the decision body would be placed. New Democrats made some suggestions about where we thought perhaps the arbitration process should be, but those amendments were not taken up.

All I can say to the member for Edmonton—St. Albert is that we made some suggestions that the government did not like or did not agree with. We felt that perhaps one of the models to use was the CGC, the Canadian Grain Commission, which actually has an arbitration process now. We felt perhaps that would be the body where we would put it. The amendments in my name talked about the process being adjudicated through CGC, but we included all the way back to farmers, not just to the handling companies or the shippers, as the amendment calls for.

At the end of the day, New Democrats did not win that, so we felt we needed to find a way to get some sort of compensation from the railways to some folks in the system. That is where we ended up, but unfortunately, you correctly raised the issue, which is within your rights to do as a member of the House, and the Speaker has ruled accordingly, and that is where we find ourselves today.

[Fair Rail for Grain Farmers Act, May 1st, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, the member is correct.

Part of what we were trying to accomplish, and the reason we said to the minister at the beginning that we would be helpful in moving the legislation is that we wanted to do exactly that. We wanted to find a way to help farmers who literally had millions of tonnes of grain sitting on the Prairies.

There are two truths to that. Some of it is in bins, for sure, and some of it is in elevators, but a lot of it was sitting on the ground, literally on the Prairie ground. Some was covered by tarps. I witnessed when I was in Saskatchewan not long ago that some of the tarps are gone.

When there is a bit of a thaw and rain, the wheat gets spoiled. A farmer said that I should come back to Saskatchewan to hunt deer, because they are going to be the fattest deer ever seen due to the amount of grain they will eat, which is just sitting on the ground.

It is true; they will be. The dilemma with that is that it is now contaminated. It cannot be sold for feed because of the contamination. We lost some time, and we lost some opportunities.

My colleague, the member for Sydney—Victoria is right. This could have happened through the rail service agreement a year ago, but it did not happen. We cannot look back and say it should have been, could have been, and we hoped it would be. It did not happen.

Now we are at a point where we have moved it a bit but not nearly enough. There were some things we suggested that would have moved it even further. They were not taken up by the government side. Maybe in hindsight it is looking at them and wishing it had, but that was, again, an opportunity missed.

I look forward to getting this moved forward, to at least getting this amount done for farmers. Farmers are looking for a signal from all of us here that we understand the dilemma they face. It is real. It is not just a statistical number. It is real for them and their families, and for many of them it is a question of their livelihood and going into further debt when they cannot move the grain. If they cannot sell it, they do not get paid. That is the reality of not moving their product.

The bigger issue across the country, of course, and the minister addressed it during his speech, is reassuring our international customers. We saw through testimony at the committee that Japan had said it was going to buy somewhere else because Canada was not a reliable supplier. The Canada brand has become “not reliable supplier”. That is a shame.

Farmers across this country have spent decades building that Canada brand to the point where we were seen as producing the finest quality wheat in the world and as the most reliable supplier, on time with good delivery. Now we are seeing that erode so quickly.

We all know, in a competitive marketplace, how quickly customers get frustrated and simply say they can go somewhere else, and because they can go somewhere else, they do not need to get it from us. That is a shame.

We are going to have to work hard on that. Farmers will redouble their efforts, no doubt. I would look to the government and suggest it is going to have to redouble its efforts, as well, to ensure that at the end of the day we find those customers and convince them that they need to come back, because we can and will be again not only the best in the world but a reliable supplier of that great grain that is grown on the Prairies.

[Fair Rail for Grain Farmers Act, May 1st, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague is absolutely right. I think one of the major pieces we were trying to help the government understand and get into the legislation was this whole idea of short-line railroads and producer cars.

I realize it is a little technical, but basically a producer car is a rail car into which the farmer loads the grain. He does not have to go to an elevator, but it is parked on the railroad siding. Short-line railroads are exactly that: short lines, which are short pieces of rail that are privately held and not run by the major railways. Those could have been a major component in making sure there was more of a competitive situation for farmers, because if a farmer loads his own car and sends it out to the Port of Vancouver, he is not paying the elevating charge to have it handled that he normally would.

I think this was a missed opportunity, but in life that quite often happens. My colleague and I, and our colleagues on the opposition side at committee, stressed the need for short lines to be involved and producer cars to be made available, because the stories we heard from farmers were that they were not available.

I think that was a missed opportunity for the government, which is why I said earlier in my speech that I would hope in future, when we are saying things that we believe are helpful and constructive, that the government actually hears what we are trying to say in a non-partisan way. We are trying to make this a better bill, because that is what it is about. We agreed from the beginning that we would work together.

However, my colleague has pointed out the short line and producer cars, which is exactly the piece that would have made the bill better, and it would not have been ruled out of order. It would have been a clear amendment. We lost that opportunity, but it does not negate the fact that we need to move this along because some of it will help farmers, not to the degree we would like, but at least it gets us moved down the field a bit.

[Fair Rail for Grain Farmers Act, May 1st, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, let me start by suggesting for the government, as the minister has acknowledged, the hard work by this side of the House in working on a piece of government legislation. When both parties, the opposition parties and the government, seize the opportunity to work on legislation, that can happen. This is a prime example of how the House can actually function when it comes to legislation, without the need to ram it through under time allocation or closure. That should be the model the government members look to when they bring in legislation, that perhaps there is a sense that the other side can work together with them on it.

I would suggest that the Conservatives should look to the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food in the future, in the sense of seeing how that could happen, as well as looking to those of us on the opposition benches who may be responsible for those particular portfolios, who could help them do that. Where it is not feasible, then let the House do what it normally does, and that is to have debates on legislation so we can improve it.

What we witnessed today with the Speaker's ruling is that when we get into a time crunch, albeit a time crunch that we put on ourselves, we make mistakes. As members of the committee, opposition and government, we agreed to try contract the time because of the emergency need of Prairie farmers to move grain. Even though we agreed to get this done expeditiously, mistakes happened, at least from the perspective of the Speaker, who ruled that it was an inadmissible amendment. The dilemma was that with the time frame in which we were dealing a mistake slipped through, but was then caught.

The member for Edmonton—St. Albert pointed it out to the Speaker, which is the member's right to do, and the Speaker ruled in an appropriate fashion. That should be a cautionary tale to all of us. When we rush legislation, mistakes get made, and we need to find ways to correct them.

Even though we are trying to accomplish something, we end up with a mistake on a procedural matter, not of legislation. The opposition parties agreed that we needed to find a way to get compensation all the way back to the farmer, not just necessarily the grain company. However, I use the pun intentionally when I say that sometimes a half a loaf is better than no loaf at all. In the parlance of people in the grain industry, they would be happy to sell some grain to make half a loaf because at the moment there is far too much grain on the Prairies. The expectation is that by the end of this crop year, which is July 31, there will still be 22 million tonnes of this year's grain left over when next year's crop comes in, so we will still see this need to move.

Clearly the legislation, from our perspective, moved the goal posts somewhat. Unlike the minister's analysis of being in the red zone and needing to get across the goal line to score a touchdown, I would suggest we tried an onside kick and we did not quite catch it. We are literally at a point where we have moved a bit, but we did not get to where we needed to get. Speaking for the New Democrats as the opposition, we have come to the realization and conclusion that this legislation needs to move forward. We intend to continue to support the legislation and move it forward.

It is important, albeit not as much as we would like, but in life we cannot get all of the things we want. However, this should be a cautionary tale for the government side. We want to work together and help the government with legislation. However, perhaps those members ought to also understand that when we put forward amendments, they are not frivolous, but are actually helpful and there are times when maybe they should accept them. I recognize the Conservatives do not have to take them all, and perhaps sometimes none, but when it comes to this type of legislation, we are working together. The minister has very graciously acknowledged that, which I appreciate and extend back to the minister.

His co-operation from the get-go was absolutely first rate. He ensured that we were informed ahead of time, so we knew it would come. When we are given that type of briefing, we greatly appreciate that. All opposition parties were given that, which was absolutely important to do because we worked together to do this. The next step is that sometimes our amendments are worth considering.

I would hope in the future that there will be other opportunities to do this again. It would go a long way to making things function the way they should, and we could actually take the next step where we really do consider all amendments from all parties. They may well indeed be worthwhile and helpful.

Let me just say, on behalf of the opposition, that we intend to support the bill at third reading, which was our intention from the beginning. The commitment to the minister was to try to help in the best way we knew how. We believe we have fulfilled and kept the promise we made to the minister at the agriculture committee. As the loyal opposition, we said we would do that, and we intend to do that.

I am hopeful that we will see the bill progress into law, so we can start to help farmers across the Prairies. This is what it is all about. It is about helping those farmers on the Prairies who have been suffering for a long period of time, and some may continue to suffer. I think the minister and I recognize that, and I am sure my colleague from the Liberal Party also recognizes that. Unfortunately, there will be some farmers who will get caught in this, for whatever reason. It will not be a good situation for probably a minority of farmers, which is the real pity of it all.

I look forward to the bill being implemented and to other opportunities where the government extends a welcoming helpful hand. We look forward to working with government members, and if the legislation would indeed help farmers, we will be there to make sure farmers get that help.