House of Commons speaker Andrew Scheer has rejected another opposition attempt to use parliamentary procedural rules to derail Conservative plans to end the Canadian Wheat Board monopoly this year.
On Jan. 31, Scheer ruled against an argument from Liberal agriculture critic Frank Valeriote that parliamentary passage of Bill C-18 in December violated his privileges as a member of Parliament because a Federal Court judge in Winnipeg ruled in December that the government had ignored the rule of law requiring a farmer vote.
Scheer said Valeriote was raising an issue of the legality of the legislation. His argument was that the court judgment, to be appealed by the government, “rendered the bill and therefore the House’s consideration of it, illegal.”
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However, the speaker ruled that courts will decide that issue and the speaker rules only on whether Commons rules have been broken.
To rule on whether the legislation passed into law in mid-December was improperly before the House “would require me to rule on the legality of the bill and this is simply outside the bounds of what can be considered by the speaker.”
In mid-January, former farmer-elected directors of the CWB who were fired the day the legislation was proclaimed into law were in a Winnipeg court asking that royal assent for the bill that was granted in December be reversed until courts have ruled on its legality.
The Court of Queen’s Bench decision has been reserved.
Former elected director Stewart Wells has suggested the fight against CWB legislation could make its way to the Supreme Court, even though the bill is now law and being implemented.
The single desk is scheduled to end July 31.
