Mr. Speaker, I imagine one of the reasons the member opposite was elected and sent to the House by the people he represents was to work hard for them. I applaud him for fighting to keep the industry in his town open. That is why I was sent here. I will stand in the House every day if need be to fight for my constituents.
He inferred that we did not campaign for farmers during the election. I will read what it says in our Alliance policy. This is misquoted time and again by the agriculture minister and it is very unfortunate that he does that. It states:
To ensure a self-reliant and economically viable agriculture sector, we will vigorously seek free entry of Canadian products into foreign markets. We support and will advocate the phased reduction and elimination of all subsidies, support programs and trade restrictions in conjunction with other countries.
That is where the government has gone wrong. It has gone out ahead of other countries and reduced the subsidies for our producers while other countries receive subsidies. This has put our producers in a very bad situation. They will not agree with that.
A component of what the agriculture community needs on a long term basis is a disaster program that responds to the need and gets the money out quickly. We need a long term income stabilization program to put some stability back into the program. We need opportunities to market our product the way we see fit. We need a government with some guts to go to the United States and the European Union and fight down the subsidies that are killing our producers.