Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food and I certainly agree on how important agriculture and its spinoff industries, from farmers through the processing industry to the transportation industry, are to the Canadian economy. Agriculture is a huge contributor to jobs and the economy in this country and a huge contributor to GDP.
I have always maintained, and I am a former farm leader, that agriculture is a producer of wealth. In the agricultural community, farmers take something and grow it and produce it and create wealth. Part of the problem for primary producers is that it is often awfully hard for them to retain that wealth in their own operations, but they do a lot of good work and add to the economy of the country as a whole.
It is one of the reasons why we have to recognize that in the global community we cannot be the odd person out. If the United States and Europe are supporting their agricultural industry more than we are, by not doing something similar in our own country, we are not creating a level playing field for our producers.
All things have to tie together. We need the infrastructure, transportation, and shipping to get our products to market in an efficient and competitive way. The government could do much more than it is doing currently in that particular area.