The Canadian Wheat Board reform road show is preparing another tour of Western Canada, thanks to the Senate agriculture committee and its plans for spring hearings on CWB legislation.
Members on the committee last week said they want to give farmers one last chance to speak on Bill C-4 at public hearings planned in late March or early April in each of the prairie provinces.
Several senators on the committee suggested they might accept some of the critics’ demands to amend the legislation, sending it back to the House of Commons sometime in spring for one more debate.
Read Also
Alberta researcher helps unlock the economics of farming
Lethbridge Polytechnic researcher helping agriculture producers with decision-making tools in economic feasibility
MPs must vote on any Senate amendments to legislation already approved by the Commons.
If that happened, the government might have to find parliamentary time again to debate the wheat board issue in April or May, as the Commons heads toward summer recess with a crowded agenda.
“We certainly have been receiving a lot of requests both from groups and individuals to appear,” Saskatchewan Conservative senator and agriculture committee chair Len Gustafson said in an interview.
“I know I have some serious concerns about it, as do many farmers. I would say amendments could be very possible.”
Saskatchewan Liberal senator Herb Sparrow, also a committee member, agreed. He said the uproar over whether new grains could be added to the board monopoly has caught senators’ attention.
“I would see that there will be some amendments and the House of Commons will have to deal with those,” Sparrow said in a Feb. 23 interview from North Battleford, Sask.
Such early indications of senatorial independence from the government will give encouragement to critics who plan to continue their assault against C-4.
Reform agriculture critic Jay Hill has asked to be allowed to appear before senators to explain his party’s amendments defeated by the Liberals in the Commons.
Vows to fight bill
Conservative critic Rick Borotsik says he is rallying the 45-member Tory Senate caucus to fight the bill. There are 50 Liberals and four Independents.
The coalition of commodity groups against the bill say they will use Senate hearings to continue the fight.
The Senate inherited the wheat board bill last week after the Liberals used their Commons majority to cut off debate and approve it.
Alberta Liberal Nick Taylor introduced the legislation for Senate debate Feb. 19 with a stout defence of the plan to create a partially elected board of directors, give the CWB more flexibility to cash-buy grain and end government guarantees of initial price adjustments.
He even defended the inclusion clause, which wheat board minister Ralph Goodale said at the last moment in the House could be removed, as long as the government retained the right to propose a farmer vote on adding new grains to the board in future.
Taylor said the vocal critics of the inclusion clause should understand that a “rogue minority group” could not trigger addition of a new grain to the monopoly since “the process for adding or removing crops is balanced and transparent.”
But Sparrow said the clause might not make it through the Senate process and he figures the government might not mind getting another chance to remove a major focus of the opposition.
“I think there will be some backing off by the minister in regards to the exclusion, inclusion clause,” he said.
