To thunderous cheers from Conservative MPs and jeers from opposition benches, agriculture minister Gerry Ritz tabled in Parliament yesterday “historic” legislation to end the Canadian Wheat Board monopoly by Aug. 1, 2012.
But by then, the parliamentary battle had already started.
Liberal MP Wayne Easter rose hours earlier to argue that the government intention to introduce legislation to end the monopoly without a farmer vote violated MP privileges by ignoring a provision in the 1998 CWB Act amendments that require such a vote before changes are made to board powers.
Government House leader Peter Van Loan responded that the argument was absurd. A government has the right to change legislation it inherited from previous governments, and Bill C-18 will repeal the CWB Act and its voting requirement.
Government legislation cannot bind future governments, he said.
“I would suggest for that reason — that is the practical logical problems that would result were Parliament able to fetter the subsequent discretion of all future Parliaments in this fashion — that our democratic system would indeed be paralyzed and held back by the heavy hand of history.”
Speaker Andrew Scheer, a Saskatchewan Conservative, has yet to rule on the argument.
The point of privilege was just the first opposition salvo in a political battle that will rage on Parliament Hill throughout the autumn as the majority Conservatives vow to get the bill into law by mid-December and opposition MPs vow to use whatever parliamentary tactics they can to thwart the government timetable.
“This out-of-touch government thinks it knows better than Canadian farmers,” interim New Democratic Party and opposition leader Nycole Turmel said yesterday. “They are putting the family farm at risk at a time when our economy needs stability.”
NDP wheat board critic Pat Martin said he would lead a vigorous fight against the legislation, although he conceded that with a majority, the Conservative government likely can meet its self-imposed deadline if it is prepared to cut short parliamentary debate.
“I’m sure the minister can meet his December deadline if he throws all democratic process to the wind,” he said.
The Conservatives illustrated their determination by launching parliamentary debate on the bill today, a day after it was introduced.
The Conservatives are expected to use their majority in both the House of Commons and Senate to limit debate at various stages of the bill’s progress.
If both sides are true to their vows, it will become the most prolonged and bitter parliamentary agriculture debate since the Liberals first moved to water down the Crow rate grain subsidy almost three decades ago.
