Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to the member's comments. The NDP member would have a lot more credibility if his government in Saskatchewan took agriculture a lot more seriously and supported the farmers. That is one of the real problems we have when we come to Ottawa. Many people here ask us what the provincial government is doing and we have to say “very, very little”. That is one of the key problems.
I do not want this to be too partisan, but I want to make some points here. When the member pointed out some of the problems in Saskatchewan he failed to mention that the provincial government there has taxed farmers to death. We complain about federal taxes but the taxes in the province are just as bad. For example, the member talked a lot about the high cost of fuel. It gets a lot of headlines back in the province. However, he failed to mention that the provincial fuel tax is the highest in the country. Why not reduce that? There is no reason he cannot put some pressure on his friends in the provincial government in Saskatchewan to do that.
The Province of Saskatchewan also makes huge profits off farmers through its crown corporations. The natural gas is all handled by a crown corporation and farmers have to pay the taxes on that natural gas. The electrical power is supplied by a crown corporation. It is making huge profits. The telephone company is a crown corporation making huge profits, in fact, expanding around the world. The member complains about what is happening. This has to be rectified and the member should begin to address the problem.
We can talk about property taxes and the downloading of all the education costs on farmers through those property taxes. I could talk about transportation costs: $50 million every year because the Government of Saskatchewan failed to put pressure on the restructuring of the railroads. It did virtually nothing on that.
Those are four areas where nothing was done and farmers are now paying the costs because of the mismanagement back in the province of the NDP. I think the member should answer some of those questions.