I realize there are a lot of other speakers, so I'm going to try to be as brief as possible.
I don't normally sit on this committee. It's been a couple of years since I've been a part of the agriculture committee, and I realize it's one of the committees that has the potential to do a lot of good work and it usually works together very well.
My concern with the motion, and I've already somewhat hinted at why I do not like it, is that I think it's a tendency to look backwards. I think we should continue to refine programs and so on.
I know that the member for Prince Edward Island who moved this motion has come out to my area. I wish he were listening right now, because I was going to say that I have appreciated the fact that he did come out and listen to the farmers in my area. The agricultural farm forum that the member from Prince Edward Island attended was attended by many farmers. He had an opportunity to hear from those farmers. I appreciate that he did come out there, and he participated in a very non-partisan way. I thank him for that. I'm still looking for something that I can give him as a token of appreciation. I found some Corner Gas mugs the other day, but I don't know how he would take those. Anyway, I want to thank him for that.
I also want to say that in recent weeks I have met with a lot of farmers in my area. Of course, we've had some severe flooding problems, 40 inches of rain last year in some areas, and this year again, a high snowfall and so on. I was out there visiting and talking with these people, and a group of farmers wanted a special meeting with me. I got together with them, expecting to hear criticism of some of the Liberal programs that we were trying to make work, like the CAIS program. Instead, they had not one negative thing to say about this government.
I want to put it on the record. They said that we have not had this much attention paid to agriculture since the days of John Diefenbaker.
I was quite surprised at that, yet I think it's important that people know they want us to continue to improve farm programs. They appreciate what this committee does when they investigate how to improve things. That's why I would appeal to the committee to look forward, not backward.
One of the things they're excited about is the biofuel strategy and the potential the biofuels industry has. I guess some of them are complaining about gasoline prices right now. We're caught in an international marketplace, but they also see that as a potential for the biofuels industry to maybe help farmers out. There may be a bit of a silver lining in that cloud. Anyway, it's no secret all the things that this government is doing.
They're also very excited about the changes to the Wheat Board. This is kind of an aside, and it has nothing to do with this discussion, but they are planting barley like never before. I think it's good for this committee to know these things.
I just wanted that brief comment to be on the record. I appeal to the committee to try to look forward and not to throw sand in the gears here by passing this motion.