The minority Liberal government is trying to rush through Parliament a bill that will change rules governing how imported American grain is treated in order to comply by Aug. 1
with a World Trade Organization ruling against Canada.
If it is not law by Aug. 1, the United States will be able to retaliate because it won the WTO judgment against Canada’s treatment of imported grain in August 2004. The proposed legislation would change the requirement of prior approval by the Canadian Grain Commission for American grain imports or mixing to a notification requirement, and would open the Canadian Transportation Act railway grain revenue cap to the costs of moving American grain into the Canadian handling system.
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With an election rumoured to be triggered within a month, it will be a rush to get the bill through the House of Commons, the Commons agriculture committee and the Senate within a few weeks.
The Conservative opposition indicated it will allow the bill to pass but only if it is amended to require a full review of the Canada Grains Act and the operations of the Canadian Grain Commission.
Conservative agriculture critic Diane Finley said the party will make its support of the bill contingent on “an amendment that upon passage of this legislation the government initiate a mandatory comprehensive review of the Canada Grain Act and all organizations mandated by the act to be completed within one year of the bill coming into force.”
Earlier, at a meeting of the Commons agriculture committee, a government representative said it is important that the bill bring Canada in line with the WTO ruling.
“There are a lot of issues surrounding the Canadian Grain Commission and the government agrees to deal with those at a later date,” said Wayne Easter, parliamentary secretary to agriculture minister Andy Mitchell. “But in terms of meeting the conditions of the WTO, the bill is very narrow, and I think that we need to get it through…. There’s some urgency that we deal with Bill C-40, relative, or we’ll open ourselves up to retaliation from the Americans.”
