The sun is shining, the tulips are blooming and members of Parliament in Ottawa are counting down the weeks until the House of Commons rises for its summer break.
With an election less than six months away, Ottawa’s brightest political minds are already starting to shift into campaign mode. That is, unless you’re a member of the government still looking to pass the last of the session’s outstanding legislation.
One of those parliamentarians is agriculture minister Gerry Ritz – who’s latest agriculture bill, C-48, has been stuck at first reading since last December.
Read Also
Growth plates are instrumental in shaping a horse’s life
Young horse training plans and workloads must match their skeletal development. Failing to plan around growth plates can create lifelong physical problems.
The legislation, commonly known as the Modernization of Canada’s Grain Industry Act, would bring about changes to the Canadian Grain Commission. Among the changes would be a new mandate for the Grain Commission, along with producer protection and a new class of licenses for container loading facilities.
The minister has faced some pressure from industry groups, including the Grain Growers of Canada, who have said they would like the proposed legislation passed before Parliament rises for the summer – and before fall harvest.
The fixed election date set for October also means the likelihood of the House returning before the election is slim once Parliament takes summer break, leaving the fall free for a campaign.
That means Parliament could opt to wait until after Christmas to return to work, or at least pause until late November, where C-48 would have to be reintroduced in order for it to be adopted, assuming the Conservatives win the election. Whether the Liberals or the New Democrats would reintroduce the bill is unclear.
If the federal Conservatives want the bill passed before the election they’re running out of time, and they know it.
Liberal agriculture critic Mark Eyking has already raised the lack of movement on the Grain Commission bill once in the House — a public query that sources say triggered a short-lived sense of urgency on the bill among Conservatives behind the scenes.
That urgency, sources say, was promptly quashed by ongoing de-bate around the government’s security bill, C-51, and the delayed arrival of the federal budget, which still awaits implementing legislation.
There is also debate remaining on C-42, the Common Sense Firearms Licensing Act, which the Conservatives would also like to see passed into law before the next federal election.
Which brings us to the April 30 meeting of the House agriculture committee, where minister Ritz was called to testify on parliament’s Main Estimates – a critical piece in parliament’s financial cycle.
Ministerial appearances at committee are also a great opportunities for MPs to ask the minister for updates on issues within their portfolios, or in this case, for the minister to express muted frustration on files that haven’t progressed as well as they might have hoped.
For Ritz, that file appears to be C-48, and he told the House agriculture committee as much.
According to the minister, the Conservative house leader Peter Van Loan had approached the Opposition parties to see if a deal could be reached in early April to fast track bill C-48 to committee, bypassing second reading.
Deals like this have been struck in the past, but require unanimous consent. For example, all parties agreed to fast-track the Fair Rail for Grain Farmers Act to committee last spring in light of the grain transportation crisis in the Prairies.
This time the NDP weren’t willing to play ball, Ritz told the committee, accusing his NDP colleagues of “playing political games.”
NDP sources tell a different story — suggesting the Conservative house leader broached the issue when he knew the Official Opposition members didn’t have anyone in the House who could speak to the bill before being fast-tracked.
The NDP house leader Peter Julian, so the story goes, asked for the issue to be postponed temporarily until enough speakers could be rounded up — a request, sources say, that was turned down by Conservatives who wanted the bill to be addressed immediately.
The issue, sources say, hasn’t been broached since.
And so, C-48 remains stuck a first reading, while parliament’s clock keeps ticking.
