In the middle of a massive soup-to-nuts budget implementation bill, the Conservative government is proposing to enact sweeping changes to the way the Canadian Grain Commission operates.
It will receive little parliamentary attention because it is a small part of a 400 page budget bill that will likely be approved within months.
Critics are crying foul.
The proposed changes will end the need for inward inspections of grain going between elevators within the same company, change the bonding system for grain traders into an insurance system and offer farmers an option of paying for some services they now receive from the commission if they want to contract them from private sources.
Read Also
Interest in biological crop inputs continues to grow
It was only a few years ago that interest in alternative methods such as biologicals to boost a crop’s nutrient…
Regional appeals tribunals will be abolished.
Later legislation is expected to enact governance changes.
CGC chief commissioner Elwin Hermanson said the end of mandatory inward inspection simply reflects the fact that the grain industry has become much more concentrated since the Canada Grain Act was last amended 40 years ago.
That action alone will save the system $20 million or more a year, he said.
“It is a modernization that farmers have been calling for but it will in no way affect the work that the commission does to ensure grain industry standards,” said Hermanson. “It will make it more efficient.”
Once Parliament approves the budget implementation bill, C-38, and unnecessary regulatory costs are removed from the system, discussions will begin with the industry about how to increase fee-for-service revenue that will get the CGC to a self-sustaining financial position, Hermanson said.
User fees had been frozen for two decades, and the commission has run a deficit that requires annual government subsidies.
In the 2012 budget, finance minister Jim Flaherty promised $44 million in subsidies over two years while the commission arranges new fee-for-service deals with the industry.
“There will be increases, but at this point I cannot speculate on how much it might cost because it depends on what services the industry wants to pay for,” said Hermanson.
The Canada Grain Act amendments will take effect Aug. 1. New fee-for-service plans are to be negotiated by then.
Grain sector supporters of the Conservative government’s deregulation emphasis applauded the announcement.
The Western Canadian Grain Growers Association said it supports changes “that will eliminate unnecessary regulatory costs in the Canadian grain handling system.”
Western Barley Growers Association president Doug Robertson said lower grain market regulatory fees are necessary to make Canadian farmers more competitive.
However, anti-Conservative Canadian Wheat Board Alliance activists issued an angry statement Oct. 22 arguing that Conservative changes would take quality control of grain “back to 1900 when we had rats in the grain.”
Hermanson laughed at the suggestion.
“If there are rats in your grain, you’re still in trouble. There still will be monitoring for pesticide residues,” he said. “The current bill before Parliament strengthens our ability to go into any elevator and take samples to make sure the grain is safe, so it is strengthened in that regard.”
Opposition MPs saw a different danger.
By including these changes in an omnibus budget bill of more than 400 pages, all of it to be studied by the finance committee and passed within months, significant changes to grain regulation will receive little attention.
The House of Commons agriculture committee will not examine it.
There will be precious little discussion of it on the floor of the Commons or in committee.
“This is important to the industry and it really will be lost in the shuffle as MPs look at the broader issues or more high profile issues,” Liberal agriculture critic Frank Valeriote said.
