In the early evening of Oct. 24, the Conservatives accomplished a decades-long dream for many supporters, winning a parliamentary vote that will lead to abolition of the Canadian Wheat Board monopoly.
With 39 MPs not in the House of Commons, the final vote on second reading approval-in-principle for Bill C-18 was 151-118.
All opposition MPs opposed it. Conservative MPs, who hold a majority government, greeted the result with prolonged applause.
The bill now will go to a special legislative committee for what is expected to be relatively fast approval. Membership of the committee was to have been announced by Oct. 27.
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Unlike a standing Commons committee such as agriculture, a special legislative committee typically examines the details of legislation rather than the broad principles.
Opposition critics said it was an attempt by the government to exclude witnesses from re-debating the merits or disadvantages of the 68-year-old CWB single desk.
The government has vowed to get the bill out of Parliament by mid- December.
The legislation would abolish the single desk Aug. 1, 2012, and put the wheat board in the hands of five government- appointed directors. All 10 elected directors will be dismissed when C-18 become law.
The final day of debate before the government forced the vote Oct. 24 after just three days included drama, accusations, a crucial ruling by speaker Andrew Sheer and an allegation that prairie Conservative MPs who also produce grain were in a conflict of interest.
Winnipeg Centre New Democrat Pat Martin said MPs are bound by a conflict-of-interest code that they are not allowed to take part in debates or Commons votes that could change policy in a way that would benefit them or their families.
He said if the Conservatives believe their argument that an end to the board monopoly will improve farmer returns, then they will benefit and should not have voted.
“There’s at least seven, if not more, possibly nine Conservative MPs who are engaged in grain farming or at least their families are at this point that I believe are in direct conflict of interest,” Martin said.
He named Alberta’s Ted Menzies, Rob Merrifield, Leon Benoit, Kevin Sorenson and Earl Dresshen, as well as David Anderson and Randy Hoback from Saskatchewan, and said there could possibly be two others.
Martin noted that when the Commons debated and voted on a government bailout for the auto industry during the recession, two Ontario Conservatives with car dealerships stood aside from the vote.
Conservative MPs that the New Democrat MP pestered about potential conflict either laughed it off or ignored the point.
During the final hours of debate, Conservatives challenged the validity of the CWB-sponsored plebiscite that found 62 percent of wheat farmers and 51 percent of barley farmers in favour of the single desk.
Saskatchewan MP David Anderson, parliamentary secretary on the CWB file, talked about a “little old lady” who approached a politician to say her brother and sister both received ballots but they were dead.
He said opposition MPs should not give “credence to such a flawed survey.”
Meanwhile, Scheer cleared the way for the evening vote earlier in the day when he ruled against Liberal Wayne Easter, who had argued that the bill was illegal because the government is not following the rules requiring a farmer vote in the CWB Act.
C-18 will abolish the CWB Act.
Scheer sided with government arguments that governments have the right to amend or abolish legislation passed by a former government.
He cited a parliamentary authority to make his point.
Peter Hogg’s volume on parliamentary rules says: “Not only may the Parliament or Legislature, acting within its allotted sphere of competence, make any law it chooses, it may repeal any of its earlier laws,” Hogg wrote.
“This citation rightfully underscores Parliament’s continued right to legislate,” ruled Sheer.
