Conservative MPs on the House of Commons agriculture committee are recommending that the federal Conservative government review all agriculture policies introduced by previous governments to ensure they are effective.
They want the government to ensure that when farm environmental programs are being devised, they are voluntary and compensate farmers for any violation of private property rights.
The recommendations were part of the Conservative minority report attached to the House of Commons agriculture committee report on future agriculture programs that were tabled with Parliament at the end of June.
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Although they are government, the Conservatives are a minority in both Parliament and on committees, including agriculture.
The opposition minority regularly teamed up in the agriculture committee to pass motions the government opposed and ignored.
At the core of the dispute in the latest agriculture committee report was a clash between Liberal critic and former dairy farmer Wayne Easter and Saskatchewan Conservative David Anderson, a grain producer and anti-Canadian Wheat Board monopoly activist, over the CWB.
Support orderly marketing
In the end, the opposition majority approved a recommendation that “governments provide the legislative support necessary for farmer-run orderly marketing agencies to continue to work effectively on farmers’ behalf in the area of business risk management.”
It was a clear allusion to support for the CWB single desk selling system.
The committee majority also instructed the government to “negotiate at the (World Trade Organization) to ensure that supply management is maintained and that state trading enterprises be allowed as a marketing tool.”
Anderson said that was an unbalanced proposal and his Conservatives included a recommendation that provinces be able to establish orderly structures as a marketing tool but that the CWB be voluntary.
The Conservative minority report contrasted supply management as a national program that involves price, supply and export-import controls with the wheat board that is “a regional, coercive agency without managed supply, controlled price or export-import measures.”
It also has limited producer support, they said. They did not mention that supply management also is coercive since anyone trying to operate outside the controlled system can expect a court summons.
The Conservative minority report also strayed from the majority by calling for tax cuts for farmers to help improve their bottom line.
