Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his question.
First, the Farm Credit Corporation does have a program of what is called variable rate mortgages. The reality is that Farm Credit usually takes its credit by way of a mortgage on fixed property so it is usually the mortgage on the farm.
I think what the hon. member is really addressing is more of a demand for what we would call working capital. The reality is that there is a great void between our banking sector and how it operates and how farms operate. As the hon. member has mentioned, it is because there is always a degree of uncertainty on the farm. There is always the possibility that hailstones will wipe out your crop. There are countless problems.
In my brief encounter with farming it seemed that the equipment would always break down on a Sunday when nothing was open. It goes on and on and on. These are the problems of farming.
To address the specific intent of the question, I think it goes back to some of the things that I was saying. Our financial sector genuinely is not set up to really deal with farmers. The banking sector, which has always been a short term lender, is becoming more and more of a short term lender and wants its money back every year. It wants to be able to be flexible. It wants to be fluid. Farms are just the reverse of that. Farms are long term commitments to capital. In other words, there is a breakdown in the financial structure of that system.
We have realized through the Industrial Development Bank that in the business sector there is this problem of obtaining long term capital. I think it is an apropos question to ask how we can reform the credit lending system for agriculture. Maybe this goes back to my first comment. Maybe we should think about things like schedule 3 banks, regional banks, a farm bank where farmers will understand as creditors of that bank and as lenders and depositors the problems of banking. I think that is possibly one way we could address that issue.