Prime minister Stephen Harper’s year-end decision to pull the plug on the parliamentary session throws into limbo agricultural initiatives that were before MPs for months.
For the second time in little more than a year, the end of a parliamentary session means controversial legislation to amend the Canada Grains Act and reform the Canadian Grain Commission dies.
The result of months of House of Commons agriculture committee hearings on competitiveness issues in agriculture are also in jeopardy of being lost unless members of the new committee decide to go back to the evidence to write a report.
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federal government proposed several months ago to increase the compensation rate from 80 to 90 per cent and double the maximum payment from $3 million to $6 million
Meanwhile, the government is promising that private members’ bills, in particular a bill to end the long gun registry that was approved in principle last autumn, will be brought back in the new parliamentary session at the same stage.
Harper hit the parliamentary restart button Dec. 30, cancelling a return of Parliament Jan. 25 and announcing that a new session with a throne speech will begin March 3 with a budget March 4.
The decision kills government legislation in the system including many of the crime bills the Conservatives have been complaining have not been passed.
Harper justified proroguing Parliament by arguing the government needs a new beginning for the next phase of the economic recovery package.
In the interim, he will appoint five new senators who will give the minority Conservative government a majority on senate committees where government legislation sometimes has been delayed or amended.
Opposition MPs complained that the government was running away from its critics, particularly the committee examining Canadian treatment of prisoners in Afghanistan.
Liberal agriculture critic Wayne Easter said the decision to close the House down for more than a month has implications for agricultural issues.
The months of hearings on agricultural competitiveness may be lost if the new committee does not agree to return to writing a report from evidence collected in the last session.
“I think we’ll have to start over and that is a real tragedy,” he said.
“There is a lot of good evidence there, but who knows what the make-up of the committee will be and whether we have agreement to go back to that file.”
He said the committee could have had an emergency meeting on the ongoing crisis in the livestock sector.
“We should be examining that because I’ve been hearing from producers that what is happening is just not working.”
Plans put forward by Ontario Conservative Bev Shipley to hold hearings on issues facing new farm entrants are in limbo.
And an attempt by opposition MPs led by Bloc Québécois critic André Bellavance to recommend a payment to packers for extra costs to deal with disposal of specified risk materials has been shelved.
