The Conservative government relied on its House of Commons majority today to ensure a quick end to the initial parliamentary debate on government plans to end the Canadian Wheat Board monopoly.
Debate will be cut off at the end of day Oct. 24 with a vote to approve the bill in principle and send it to committee that evening.
After two opposition MPs had spoken on Bill C-18 yesterday, a day after it was introduced, government House leader Peter Van Loan announced that just two more days of debate would be allowed.
That motion was approved today.
Before the vote on the closure motion that saw all Conservatives present and the motion prevail, agriculture minister Gerry Ritz defended the government decision to limit debate and to see the bill sent to committee quickly.
“I guess the simple answer is timeliness,” he said in the Commons. “Markets and farmers themselves need clarity and certainty as to when this would move through. They are already starting to do farm inputs in the fall. They will spread fertilizer and put chemicals down depending upon what commodity they will seed in the spring.”
And that decision depends on the marketing system that is in place, he said, so the government must get the bill through Parliament quickly.
“Farmers need to know that what they seed next spring is going to be theirs to market and that is why we are putting time allocation on this,” said Ritz. “It is to make sure that this is through by the end of this calendar year so that the industry itself can adjust and markets will adjust accordingly.”
Opposition MPs accused the Conservatives of dictatorial and undemocratic tactics and said the Conservatives have changed their tune on government use of closure since they were in opposition.
Rookie Quebec New Democrat Philip Toone noted that the Conservatives moved to limit debate after less than two hours.
He reminded Parliament of a complaint then-Conservative leader Stephen Harper made in 2004 about Liberal closure actions.
“The government invoked closure in the House after only six days,” Harper said then.
Toone said the current government decision to cut off debate is hypocritical.
Ritz disagreed, arguing that the CWB debate has been ongoing for decades and must be resolved quickly.
“We will use whatever is necessary to make that happen in a timely way,” he told opposition MPs. “The main tenet of democracy is having one’s say, not necessarily having one’s way no matter how loud one screams.”
