Mr. Speaker, it gives me great pleasure to rise in the House this afternoon to speak against the motion by the hon. member for Québec-Est.
Part of that motion talks about the government's lack of action in the agricultural sector. I find this an insult to our agricultural sector. I do not believe that farmers have the intention of coming here with their hands out looking for favours from our government.
I would like to talk about my riding, the riding of Durham, which is a large agricultural sector. It includes Uxbridge, Scugog township, Bowmanville and Orono. These places are well known for their agricultural background and indeed not only in the riding but throughout Canada. They show their cattle at the local royal agricultural fair and compete with some farmers from Quebec.
In my riding agriculture is the second largest industry, second only to General Motors.
My years of living with these people and acting as an adviser to them and farming myself has taught me of their great independence and integrity. They do not depend on government to run their local every day operations. Today I am sure that many are out on the land cultivating and preparing for their spring crops.
What is the role of government and how does it interact with our farming community? What has the government actually done to foster this development?
I would like to talk about three basic areas. One is trade. As some will know, we have just recently culminated our trade negotiations in GATT in which we have had a change in our system from the supply management system to a tariffication system. We spent a great many days and hours in this House debating these negotiations. Indeed, our agriculture department has been involved on an hourly basis dealing with this.
This even continues after the culmination of GATT as we try to get side agreements with the Americans dealing with some of our problems with durum wheat and so forth. In fact, the government has been committed to representing the interests of farmers. I can assure members that the farmers in my riding that I have talked to are indeed happy and proud that our government has stood up for their interests. They realize they did not get everything they wanted from the GATT negotiations.
Having said that, I go back to my original premise. They are proud and independent people. They look at the GATT negotiations and the new trade opportunities as great challenges for Canadian farmers. They look at things like NAFTA and new markets created both in the United States and now in Mexico.
Only last week a number of farmers attended at my office. Their promotion was not that they were upset with the actions of the government, indeed not. They wanted to attend a trade negotiation in South America. They wanted to find out more about bean farmers in South America. I am happy to say that I transferred those comments to the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food who is considering this.
Another of these farmers had realized the great opportunities presented by the North American market and developed a food processing plant. Many of the farmers in the area got together to support this. This production facility which basically fast freezes vegetables ships 100 per cent of its output into the American market. These are great opportunities that our farmers are realizing.
I would like to speak of another area to do with research and development and our government's commitment to Canadian farmers in the areas of research and development. Our ability to innovate depends on a commitment to research. Agri-food research has produced some exceptional economic gains for Canada.
Perhaps the best example is the development of canola. From humble origins as rapeseed grown during the Second World War to produce a marine lubricant, canola has become one of our most important export crops worth almost a billion dollars.
The Cinderella story of canola is well known but it is still worth noting that researchers at Agri-Food Canada used selective breeding to reduce or eliminate undesirable aspects of the oil and produced a high quality oil substitute for human consumption.
There are many other good examples of innovative thinking in agri-research. For instance the research centre in Lennoxville, Quebec has adapted a technology that helps detect a generic mutation in pork that reduces quality. This technology will help pork producers sell their products into lucrative markets but also very selective markets in Asia.
I should interject at this point to note that as we stand here the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food is in southeast Asia promoting new markets for Canadian agricultural producers. I am proud to say that I have taken some of those initiatives to heart in my own riding and suggested to some of our dairy producers who export cattle around the world that they should also be focusing on southeast Asia.
Furthermore, I would like to mention that CIDA has an agricultural dairy operation testing in southern China at this very moment. We hope that some of the benefits that will flow
out of that are increased cattle production and shipment to China.
Carrying on with research and development, the Saskatoon Research Centre has developed a new type of sunflower called sunola that is heat and drought resistant. This crop can be grown further north than regular sunflowers and produces a healthier oil. Contract production began in Saskatchewan in 1993 on about 100,000 acres.
The department is also a major player in the development and application of biotechnologies like natural pest controls for the improvement of agriculture and agri-food products.
In these times of fiscal restraint expanding our budget for agri-food R and D is just not possible. But the minister has made a firm commitment to maintain current research funding levels by absorbing administrative costs in other parts of his department.
At the same time the department is ensuring that research priorities are driven by market opportunities. Better focused R and D is critical to global competitiveness and economic growth. It is now increasingly important for us to develop low cost processes and the new products we need to capture new markets. The future holds great opportunities and potential gains for biotechnology and from value added non-food products such as ethanol.
Canada is not alone in this field. Our agri-food sector has a lot of competitors. While Canada has a strong record on public investment and R and D our competitors invest more overall, that is public and private sector research and development, than we do.
The main challenges the government faces are to keep R and D funding at least at current levels to ensure that research priorities are driven by market opportunities, to stimulate industry investment, to look into ways of increasing the accessibility of venture capital for new products and development, to ensure that the right technologies get to the right people as quickly as possible.
R and D unlike other expenditures cannot be turned off like a tap. It requires careful planning. Because of inadequate support for research in the past, Canada has already missed the advantages of leadership in some areas. They will change policies that act as disincentives to the private sector in investment in agri-food technologies.
I would like to go on to a further section and that is to deal with our taxation policies. In Canada we have a very favourable tax policy toward farmers. It is called cash basis accounting. It means that you can buy cattle and so forth and write them off for tax purposes. This has existed in Canada and indeed Quebec for many years. It allows our farmers to build up big inventories of cattle and livestock without paying any income tax. This program of course is being continued by our government.
I look also toward the last budget. There was much talk about losing the $500,000 exemption for farmers. I am proud to say that our finance minister has listened very well to the needs and concerns of farmers and kept this in place.
I note also that we are debating through the finance committee, of which I am a member, the GST. One of our major concerns is to reduce and to avoid taxing farmers and try to make that tax simpler for farmers so that they do not have to get involved with the accounting and so forth for it.
As you can see, Mr. Speaker, almost everything the government has done has been for the best interest in advancing the best interests of farmers.
I would like to go back to where I started and that is that this motion is inconsistent and makes farmers feel they have to be dependent on government for everything. This is just not the case and it is unworthy of Canadian farmers.