A combination of election results and Liberal choices have produced a House of Commons agriculture committee notable for its lack of government MPs representing prairie farmers.
When membership lists were unveiled last week, the Commons committee which will deal with Canadian Wheat Board legislation as a first order of business was allotted just one western Liberal – Winnipeg MP John Harvard, parliamentary secretary to the agriculture minister.
Other Liberals who have been handed the job of defending the controversial bill from its critics include five rural Ontario MPs, one from rural Quebec and three from Atlantic Canada.
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The voices on the committee with prairie farm constituencies back home include three Reform MPs – agriculture critic Jay Hill, Leon Benoit from Alberta and Jake Hoeppner from Manitoba – along with Saskatchewan New Democrat Dick Proctor and Manitoba Conservative Rick Borotsik.
Prairie Liberal left out
The only rural prairie Liberal elected June 2 was Manitoba’s David Iftody from Provencher. He was not appointed to the committee.
The agriculture committee has been ordered by the House of Commons to hold public hearings on the Canadian Wheat Board bill as its first order of business once it is organized and a chair is elected.
The chair is expected to be second-term rural Ontario Liberal MP and chicken farmer Murray Calder.
The Liberal designated to lead the defence of the bill in committee is Gerry Byrne, a young Newfoundland MP appointed parliamentary secretary to natural resources minister Ralph Goodale, responsible for the CWB.
No one to rebuff
He had his first opportunity to show off the fruits of his briefing papers one Friday in the House when Goodale was not there to answer questions.
Reform critic Hill asked why the Liberals were not willing to give prairie farmers a right to market their wheat as they wanted.
The question “speaks exactly to the heart of the bill,” said Byrne. The legislation will allow producers to make future decisions about how they want to market their grain.
“That is the democratic process and I think it is a very good piece of legislation.”
Hill tried again. The wheat board is so secretive that farmers who are elected to the board will not be able to tell farmers what they are doing or what is going on, he complained.
Byrne went on the attack. Ten of the 15 directors will be elected, said the parliamentary secretary whose riding stretches along the Newfoundland coast.
“If (Hill) does not understand a thing about democracy, perhaps he should be talking directly to farmers,” he said, before proceeding to quote a farmer whose support of the legislation had been included in the briefing book.
He wanted to continue the attack, until the House Speaker cut off his microphone.
