Thank you, Mr. Speaker, for the extra time you gave me. I would now like to answer my colleague's question.
Obviously Agriculture Canada has not done everything wrong, I would not go as far as that. There are some things it has done right. Certainly the $500,000 capital gains due to the Minister of Finance is good, there is no doubt about it, and also the encouragement for young people to return during the summer months to work on the farm.
All sorts of things that Agriculture Canada does are worth underlining, there is no doubt about it, but overall no, this government is not going in the right direction for agriculture and it shows. There are a great number of issues that could be brought up.
The loss of the number of family farms is an example. The government is not doing anything to counteract this development. I suspect that Agriculture Canada encourages inefficient producing farms or family farms and is in agreement with the American attitude in respect to agriculture. That is to say it encourages well integrated systems, large farms which will make it such that farmers will no longer be farmers. They will become employees in large farms. Maybe they will make a better salary, who knows, but personally I do not think that is the right direction in respect of the family farm.
I think the government could use more structural moneys to help redress this. One could go on and on about just this one issue. We could encourage large agricultural businesses situated in Saskatoon or Quebec City, but what about the rural areas? How do you encourage a population to occupy its rural area if you do not encourage the family farm?
Agriculture is fundamental for that. The agricultural population is not different from us. It needs all sorts of services such as schools, education, hospitals and so forth.
In losing the farmers in the rural areas and losing all the other services, these rural areas are abandoned and that is a big price to pay for a country like Canada.