The deeply divided House of Commons agriculture committee is recommending to Parliament and to agriculture ministers this week that the next version of the agricultural policy framework pay more attention to farmer needs.
In a report expected to be tabled with the Commons before week’s end, the committee majority recommends that Agriculture Canada hire staff that know more about realities down on the farm than the current bureaucrats.
It calls on federal and provincial ministers to design a new policy that will promote buying Canadian produce while embracing a variety of business risk management options including an improved margin-based program, insurance and disaster assistance.
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In its most controversial section that prolonged debate, the committee majority of opposition MPs calls on ministers to include in the new APF explicit support for “farmer-run orderly marketing agencies” working for farmers, a reference to the Canadian Wheat Board. It also calls on Ottawa to continue defending state trading enterprises in world trade talks.
The opposition is demanding that the new APF support the continued right of farmers to collectively decide they want to market through a single desk.
The governing Conservative minority on the committee will file a minority report that supports the right of farmers to voluntarily work through a marketing board.
The Western Producer has had access to a confidential version of the final recommendations.
Federal and provincial agriculture ministers are debating the new APF late this week in Whistler, B.C.
Divisions within the committee over the marketing board issue almost meant that the committee would not file a report until autumn. By then, APF discussions and decisions would be advanced and the MP opinions would have little relevance.
The committee spent months and tens of thousands of dollars holding hearings in Ottawa and travelling across the country this spring hearing testimony.
A final vote on the report came June 20, the day before the Commons adjourned for the summer, and only because the opposition combined to outvote Conservative opposition to the orderly marketing proposal from Liberal Wayne Easter.
A special order of the Commons will allow the committee to table its report this week even though the House is not sitting.
At this late date, it is far from clear if the committee’s last-minute report will have much impact on ministers’ conclusions on the next generation of farm programs.
The theme of the committee report is that farm welfare must be more central to farm programs.
“The members of the standing committee recommend that the vision for the next generation of agriculture and agrifood policy must place more emphasis on farmers and on primary agricultural production,” said the lead recommendation.
The committee also will recommend:
- Creation of a national advisory committee on farm policy development, including representatives of national farm organizations.
- Endorsement of supply management as one of the business risk management staples of Canada’s farm policy.
- A more aggressive policy on negotiating bilateral trade deals and in defending the trade rights Canada has achieved in previous agreements.
- A rule that items labelled “product of Canada” should contain at least 51 percent Canadian product.
- Tougher anti-competition rules that include more harsh penalties against “abuse of dominance in any industry” including companies in increasingly concentrated food retail and wholesale sectors.
- Support for the general thrust of federal-provincial safety net negotiations including a disaster program outside the basic compensation program.
- An annual $1 billion contingency fund for “a prolonged extraordinary disaster to allow farmers to re-establish their production capacity.”
The committee will recognize the need for provincial farm programs to supplement national programs, but will not recommend that Ottawa co-finance companion programs as Ontario insists. There was support for the companion program proposition from opposition MPs but they dropped the demand in order to get a report approved on time.
The committee also will recommend that the agriculture department devote more research resources to making sure farmers benefit from the biofuel opportunity.
