The special parliamentary committee examining a bill that will end the Canadian Wheat Board monopoly will not be a forum to relive the CWB debate, the government has signaled.
Instead, the Legislative Committee on Bill C-18 will have a mandate to look at technical details of the government plans to end the single desk Aug. 1, 2012, and provide some financial backstop to the voluntary CWB for four years as it tries to convert into a private grain trader.
The committee, chaired by Conservative MP Blaine Calkins of Alberta, met for the first time late Oct. 31 to draw up a work plan.
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But hours earlier, CWB parliamentary secretary David Anderson signalled that the committee will be expected to work quickly, restrict itself to examining technical details of the bill and to hold hearings in Ottawa.
In the House of Commons, Liberal agriculture critic Frank Valeriote demanded that the committee be given the right to travel west and to hear farmer witnesses.
“Western grain farmers and Canadians as a whole still have a right to better understand the devastating impact of this legislation,” he said.
Anderson suggested that after years of argument on the Prairies and approval of the bill in principle Oct. 24, the committee mandate will be confined.
“Our government is committed to passing the Marketing Freedom for Grain Farmers Act in a timely and orderly manner to ensure market certainty for farmers,” he said.
“They need market certainty for next year and we intend to do that as quickly as possible.”
Agriculture minister Gerry Ritz has said he wants the bill through Parliament and into law by mid-December when Parliament adjourns for six weeks.
It is a tight agenda, requiring the bill to get through the committee, report stage and final passage in the Commons and then through all stages in the Senate.
The Commons does not sit next week.
It means a focused committee procedure and little chance for opposition MPs to call witnesses or argue that the legislation is wrong-headed.
“This legislative committee is an ideal place to examine the bill and its technical nature,” said Anderson.
Ritz is expected to be the first witness.
If the bill had been referred to the Commons agriculture committee as normal, there would have been more of a forum for wide-ranging debate about the purpose and appropriateness of the government plan.
The government limited the Commons debate to just three days.
In addition to a prairie Conservative chair, the government controls a majority on the committee with western MPs Earl Dreeshen of Red Deer, Brian Storseth of northern Alberta, Anderson from Saskatchewan, Randy Hoback from Prince Albert, Rob Merrifield from Yellowhead, Candice Hoeppner from southern Manitoba and Bob Zimmer from Prince George-Peace River.
Opposition MPs are NDP agriculture critic Malcolm Allen from southwestern Ontario, Pat Martin from Winnipeg and Niki Ashton from Churchill, as well as rookie Quebec MP Jean Rousseau.
Valeriote is the lone Liberal.
