Parliament will have a farm issue-heavy agenda when it returns from its 12-week summer hiatus next week.
Well, the Senate doesn’t come back for an extra week but that is a different story, even though the Senate fits into this scenario.
Of course, the agriculture-related agenda will not be obvious from mainstream media coverage, but what else is new?
And for the first parliamentary session in more than a decade, few CWB issues should surface.
But in case there is a rural view that the parliamentary agenda is agriculture-light, here are some of the issues that MPs and senators will be debating that could affect farm business:
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- the federal government will introduce legislation in autumn to set railway service standards. Grain Growers of Canada said last week it should “provide some balance of power between the oligopoly the railways currently enjoy and people like us who are required by distance to be their customers”
- senators, once they reconvene in late September, will resume debate on a new comprehensive food safety bill that eventually will impose more stringent on-farm traceability requirements. Once it gets through the Senate, the bill will come to the House of Commons for debate and public hearings
- the government will be introducing Canada Grain Act amendments that substantially change the powers of the Canadian Grain Commission. Critics will say it tilts the balance toward the private sector while supporters will insist it makes the grain industry oversight system more modern and efficient
- a number of trade deals will be introduced for ratification and many will offer ag export opportunities. The key deal, if negotiators sign off this year, will be with the European Union and its potential for exports, as well as the European demand for more dairy access
- while it is not a strictly agricultural issue, the Conservative government is expected to use its growing Senate majority this winter to propose legislation that will limit Senate terms and offer provinces the opportunity to hold elections for Senate candidate appointments
- the Senate agriculture committee will continue hearings into ag research issues that could result in a report that lays the groundwork for research funding changes
- changes to farm support programs approved by federal and provincial ministers this week in Whitehorse may not require legislation but will be fodder for opposition questions about falling farm support
As it prepared for Parliament’s return last week, the Conservative-aligned Grain Growers lobby wrote to prime minister Stephen Harper to make some reasonable points.
Support rail service standards, they said.
Don’t spend all the time launching new trade negotiations without closing some of the deals now in discussion.
And on changes to farm support programs, make sure that farmers who will be affected are consulted. So far, they largely have been excluded.
GGC says its farmer members do not want to depend on government aid programs, but if they don’t have a say in designing alternative programs — who knows?
It seems like reasonable advice from a friend of the government.
