Mr. Speaker, I agree with the government member that, in final analysis, the energy that exists in the agricultural sector must come from its leadership.
However, it is well known that the problems do not come from farmers, they come from the inability of the government to defend them. It could not protect article XI and similarly, protectionism is disappearing. The only argument I was given at the Bélanger-Campeau Commission by the person who is now Minister of Foreign Affairs was the Canadian system will protect milk production in Quebec, but if you leave Canada you will lose this protection.
This argument is no longer appropriate, because we now are in a much larger market. Does the hon. member not agree that in the North American economy, in the Canadian economy, eastern and western agricultures have interests so different that trying to defend them simultaneously brings about important problems and situations almost impossible to reconcile? I will give an example. In lamb production there were rules to control disease. In my riding a sheep farmer had a problem because of a disease in his flock.
Previously, stricken animals were slaughtered and that was the end of the problem. Now, under pressure from the Americans, we have changed our procedure. We do not slaughter the animals anymore, because they have such large herds out West that the Americans insisted we change our procedure. In Quebec where the herds are small, we must abide by nation-wide guidelines which are not realistic for small flocks of pure bred sheep.
We thus place in opposition eastern and western farmers even though in this case it was not just to please western farmers, it was under pressure from the Americans, and this is a problem for Quebec.
I took this example to show that in the future the interests of Quebec farmers and those of Canadian farmers will be difficult to reconcile. Our interests are different and in the past we have often been on the losing end. I think that in the near future Quebec farmers are going to make a choice that will allow them to work out more concrete solutions in the larger economic market we now have.