Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for bringing up farming in relation to social support programs. As the member may know, I am originally from New Zealand where farmers were heavily subsidized to grow things like fat lambs and all sorts of products
that the world did not really need. Huge stocks of butter and lamb were put away in freezers for years and years.
As the member may also know, in New Zealand when there was a sudden debt crisis the subsidies ended rather abruptly, putting farmers on the same basis as other businesses. After all, farms are businesses.
I would like to give the member an example so that I can ask him a question. In New Zealand when the subsidies ended a lot of farmers initially went broke. It created a whole new climate for farming in which there had to be creativity and a look at where the market really should be.
All of the beans for beans and pork had been imported from the United States since the beginning of time. No one in New Zealand grew beans for baked beans. Today, because of the loss of subsidies and new creativity, New Zealand has become an exporting nation of beans to Australia and back to the United States.
There are more farmers in business today in New Zealand making more money than they ever did under the subsidy programs. I would like to ask the member if he agrees that there needs to be some responsibility taken by the farmers to look for new markets and new opportunities in new products instead of always relying on the government to bail them out.