Opposition MPs on the House of Commons agriculture committee are telling a coalition of livestock interests that Conservative MPs are blocking efforts to help them.
They may wade again into uncharted waters early next year when Opposition MPs plot to have the current chair of the agriculture committee replaced.
Parliament adjourned for six weeks Dec. 10 with the agriculture committee mired in stalemate.
It was unable to seriously debate a promised report on agricultural competitiveness due after months of hearings and unable to come to a decision on an opposition motion to recommend the government pay packers and renderers $31.70 per head of cattle to cover costs of specified risk material removal.
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The Conservative committee minority members have been refusing to allow the livestock compensation motion moved by Bloc Québécois MP André Bellavance to come to a vote that they would lose.
The proposal came Oct. 27 from a broad coalition of farm groups, packers and renderers that argued that since the United States does not require the same stringent SRM removal rules, the cost is a competitive problem for the Canadian industry. Regulations require that SRMs, which are believed to be more at risk of carrying prions that lead to BSE, must be removed during slaughter and disposed of separately.
The cost to government is estimated at $24 million.
But Conservatives will not let it come to a vote, arguing that the government needs time to consult with industry to see if there are other solutions. They argue that, as in the case of massive BSE payments when most of the benefit went to packers that lowered prices to capture the value of payments, this SRM payment would be a benefit for the packers and not farmers.
“Farmers do not agree with giving $10 million to Cargill and $8 million to XL and a couple of million here and there to other packing industries,” said Alberta Conservative Brian Storseth at a Dec. 8 committee meeting.
The Conservatives then spent the rest of that meeting and the next one Dec. 10 talking so a vote could not be held.
On Dec. 11, the opposition MPs combined to write a letter to the industry saying it is not their fault.
“The Conservatives on the committee, and the government, must explain why they are so opposed to this attempt to provide immediate financial help to the industry and to livestock producers,” wrote Bellavance, Liberal Wayne Easter and New Democrat Alex Atamanenko.
“If it were not for the total inflexibility of the Conservative members, this motion would have been tabled in the House of Commons….”
The stalemate over the SRM issue means that MPs have barely started to debate proposals in a draft report on competitiveness that has consumed months of time.
The battle is just one symptom of a partisan malaise that has taken over the agriculture committee, making it in Liberal MP Mark Eyking’s phrase “the most dysfunctional committee on Parliament Hill.”
A Parliament Hill source said this week it is leading opposition MPs on the committee to consider an attempt to remove agriculture committee chair Larry Miller, whom they consider too partisan. It would involve negotiations next year between party House leaders.
“We’ll see what happens but there certainly are conversations going on about the need to have a chair that is less partisan and better informed about the rules,” said a political player familiar with the committee chaos.
“I think the chair is a big part of the problem but will the House leaders do something? I don’t know.”
