As the government would have it, the agricultural industry should not have been surprised by the bombshell inclusion of significant grain industry regulatory changes in the latest mammoth budget bill.
It was in the budget, don’t you know.
So for the record, here it is:
On page 120 of the Economic Action Plan 2012 presented to Parliament March 29, finance minister Jim Flaherty promised to continue efforts to “modernize key institutions within the grain sector.”
Along with that vague promise came a $44 million commitment over two years as the Canadian Grain Commission “updates its fee structure.”
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From that, industry and politicians imagined a bill to update the Canada Grain Act that would receive reasonable debate, committee study and parliamentary due diligence.
Instead, they got this:
Changes to the Canada Grain Act defining grain commission functions and powers take up a bit more than 30 pages in a more than 400-page so-called “budget implementation bill” tabled last week that covers the waterfront, including reducing environmental regulations for navigable rivers.
The Conservatives had signaled that changes were coming once they achieved their majority last year.
Opposition MPs were bracing for a fight.
Grain industry groups were gearing up to support, oppose and suggest changes to proposed legislation.
Then came last week’s mammoth Bill C-38 budget implementation bill that not only changed the debate about grain industry changes. It virtually killed it.
By throwing it into a broad bill, the government sends a dog’s breakfast of legislative reform proposals to the finance committee — where few MPs have any expertise on most of the files being amended.
In the case of the Canada Grain Act amendments, the Commons agriculture committee would be best suited to deal with what is a major reform after 40 years.
MPs could educate themselves about the issue, call witnesses, propose changes or approve it as sacred text handed down from the mount by Moses Flaherty. Instead, these changes will receive little examination from the finance committee by MPs who have never seen a grain auger or know what it does. They may call a few perfunctory witnesses, but it will be largely symbolic.
The budget bill will be approved by the Conservative majority and a major change in the grain industry will be implemented with little analysis of what it could mean.
The government won’t care. In fact, it will celebrate.
It listens to people who tell it what it wants to hear: farmers are toiling under the yoke of government-imposed burden, although a broader group of industry leaders has more nuanced views of that issue; the streets are being overrun by criminals, so tough-on-crime legislation is needed even as statistics point in the opposite direction; Canada’s history is a story of warriors and wars when many believe it is a broader history.
But that is the government we have: blunt, lacking nuance and listening to its friends.
So this significant change in grain commission rules will go through with little debate, and that is a shame.
There are great arguments for change but pushing them through buried in a legislative wheelbarrow full of mud is not the proper way.
