Angry rhetoric from an opposition MP and government arguments that farmers will be better off predictably launched the Parliament Hill committee hearings into legislation to end the Canadian Wheat Board monopoly this week.
A special legislative committee opened hearings into Bill C-18 last night.
The Conservative majority imposed severe time restrictions of two nights of witnesses and then one night of clause-by-clause study before the bill will be rubber stamped and sent back to the House of Commons Nov. 14 for quick passage and a trip to the Senate.
In a presentation by Agriculture Canada deputy minister John Knubley, chair of a working group that gave the government a road map on how to get rid of the monopoly, MPs were told that competitive market forces and Canada’s competition rules will give wheat and barley farmers a chance to prosper without the CWB monopoly.
Opposition lead critic Pat Martin, a Winnipeg New Democrat, started the questioning by asking if the government had prepared a cost-benefit analysis that proves the point.
Alberta Conservative Brian Storseth quickly objected that parliamentary rules stop MPs from asking bureaucrats about advise they have given to government.
It set Martin off, venting his rage at the time limitations imposed on the committee and the limited scope of the committee investigation.
“We have been bound, gagged and hog-tied,” he said.
Then he turned on Storseth: “I asked one question and you show with your God damn anarchy book.”
He accused committee chair and Alberta MP Blaine Calkins of being “parachuted in to sabotage this committee” in the interests of the Conservative agenda.
Storseth shot back that the “anarchist handbook” actually was the handbook of parliamentary rules and procedures.
Knubley eventually referred to a number of private research reports that calculated a farmer benefit from an open market.
“Overall, these studies found no evidence that there are higher prices from the monopoly.”
The conflicting arguments will continue late today when CWB chair Allen Oberg appears with other monopoly supporting directors and later, when anti-monopoly directors and agriculture minister Gerry Ritz appear.
