Mr. Speaker, I was looking for his name. He is the same guy within that party who has been unfortunately knocking supply management. It is easy to say now, after the fact: "We knew, we knew", but it would have been better to have that party support us on this when the Americans were fighting us. They were saying: "Your party over there doesn't want the wheat board, doesn't want any of these subsidies. Members from Alberta don't want subsidies". We kept arguing that supply management was not a subsidy.
On the issue of subsidies I want to look at what Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada spends province by province. These members from Alberta keep saying: "We can do it ourselves". It is funny how much agricultural spending actually goes into the province of Alberta. In 1993 figures the amount was $536,315,000. That was well over the percentage of farmers that they have. If I were as provincial as some members in the House pretend to be and if I were just fighting for the province of Ontario instead of for the country, I would argue that Ontario with about 25 per cent of the farmers in the country is not getting its fair share. However I understand some of the problems we have in western Canada so I will not do that.
In my speech today I want to talk about a few issues, one of which is trade. Many of the problems we are having in agriculture today and many of the problems the Reform Party has in its own ridings are because of actions brought by other countries. In a lot of cases it is the United States against Canada. I feel they are very unfair actions.
If we are talking about the wheat issue, Mickey Kantor, the international trade person in the United States, said before the Senate committee last week that Canada was taking advantage of a window of opportunity that had been created. The reason the window of opportunity was created was frankly because of something called export enhancement that the United States uses. It is a two-price system which, by the way, we would like to have in this country. However the Reformers fought us against it and we do not have it now. It is a two-price system that has been responsible for wheat going out of the country.
As a result Canadian producers have been shipping wheat and have shown U.S. millers that we have high quality wheat that is graded and will do exactly what it says it will do. As a result U.S. millers have said: "I like that better. I know and I am guaranteed, because of the Canadian system of distributing wheat, that I will get that wheat and it will do what it says it will do".
The U.S. has been complaining that some actions we take with regard to wheat in western Canada and its shipment were unfair subsidies. That is not the case. The U.S. International Trade Commission found in 1990 that transportation subsidies were not a factor in the competitiveness of Canadian wheat. The U.S. General Accounting Office found in 1992 that there was no evidence of unfair wheat board practices. Again in 1992 in a unanimous decision of a binational panel, including a former U.S. Attorney General and former Chief Justice Dickson, found fault with the U.S. contentions.
However the panel recommended that an audit be done, which results were released last month some time. That report found that 102 of the 105 durum wheat contracts between 1989 and 1992 were fully in compliance with the provisions of the free trade agreement. Clearly the U.S. has no strong position on this matter.
I congratulate the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food for the tough stands he has taken. Over the years I stood in the House and watched the previous government negotiate with the Americans. I always felt that somehow we were doing something wrong in this country. I always felt as a farmer that somehow Canadian farmers were not being fairly represented by their government. I was very pleased at the GATT, with the stand the minister took in Geneva, and with some of the tough stands he has taken in terms of putting Canada's agriculture position forward very strongly.
I want to go back to the Bloc Quebecois now and the member for Québec-Est, a very good member of the standing committee who represents the views of his party well on the issue. I take exception to the fact that he is denouncing the government for lack of action in the agriculture sector. He sat around that table with us in the agriculture committee, as well as Bloc members, I might add, who add to the sense of the committee; it worked very well. In recent weeks we have looked at some of the stuff Agriculture Canada is doing. As one on the other side of the House who criticized some of the actions of Agriculture Canada, I recognized over the past little while that in fact a lot of those actions have changed substantially. They have changed substantially because the government has changed. We have given a new direction to Agriculture Canada. That direction can be found in the red book. It outlines clearly the direction we want to take agriculture into the next century.
Looking at the money Agriculture Canada is spending in Quebec-and the hon. member asked for this information-$371,723,000 have gone into the province of Quebec. According to the chart, Quebec ranks behind only Saskatchewan, Alberta, and a bit behind Ontario in this regard. Obviously with the problems they are having in western Canada with respect to wheat prices we can understand why a lot of this money has gone there.
I really do take exception to the hon. member's contention that we have not done anything. Frankly it has been six months. I do not want to use that as an excuse, but we have made some significant changes in those areas that particularly affect agriculture. I have mentioned some of those in trade and the good work the minister of agriculture is doing in standing up for trade. I also want to talk about some of the stuff we have been doing in rural development.
I come from small town Ontario, as you do, Mr. Speaker. What we have found to be happening over the past few years, especially in an area like mine that has been hit hard because of certain commodities grown there, namely tobacco. In small town Ontario unemployment rates have been rising. There has been a loss of business in stores and other areas that help farming communities. We are finding a bit of a drifting because there are no jobs, with a lot of small town people moving to the cities.
I was very pleased when the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food came forward with a plan to deal with rural development. He indicated very clearly that rural development was a top priority. This means rural development not only in Ontario and Quebec but in the west also where small towns are literally closing up in some places.
There is no huge pot of dollars; there is not a lot of money in this promise. Frankly there is not the money there. Instead of money the minister plans-and we had the department before the committee today-to organize those parts of government that are specifically directing their efforts toward helping small towns and infrastructures. We are co-ordinating the machinery of government.
It really is a grassroots participation. That is the final point I want to make. The government and the minister have taken a lot of time talking to ordinary Canadians, talking to ordinary farmers. The development of the small town initiative, the rural initiative, will be through the communities themselves.
That is one of the things I am proud of. We have done very well to make sure that before we make any decisions Canadians are consulted and that the views of farmers are heard. We will continue to do that.