Mr. Speaker, I listened with a lot of interest to the member's comments. I cannot say that I agree with all of them.
I am a poultry producer and I work under supply management. There are a few things I would like to clarify before I ask my question. First, if you go to the supermarket and take a look at the meat shelf, you will find that poultry is probably the most inexpensive buy on the shelf.
As a poultry producer, I make x dollars during the year because I have x number of chickens that I can grow. If I find ways of bringing my overhead costs down, I up my profit margins. That is what makes my industry so efficient.
It is a stable industry under supply management. A stable industry has money to put into research and development. As I said previously today, in the early 1950s it took 14 to 16 weeks to raise a four pound bird. A male bird now can be raised to that same weight in 37 days. That is research and development. That is from a stable industry.
The member suggests we are going to do away with supply management. We are not because we replaced import quotas with tariffs that effectively protect the industry within Canada. I would caution the member that as we look at lowering provincial barriers across the country, this national board will replace that same job.
We have to take a look at what happened in the United States. In 1958 Tyson Foods vertically integrated. We are talking about rural Canada. The strength of rural Canada is its farmers. Tyson Foods vertically integrated. Eighty per cent of the chicken production that was bordered along Canada went to the south central states. I know because I bought up some of that surplus equipment for my farming operation. It went dirt cheap. These
guys could not survive because of overhead costs and the price that they were getting for their poultry.
Within our industry we have health standards which the United States does not even come close to. A declassed bird in the United States is 60 per cent bruising and is sold off of the shelf. You will not see that here in Canada. We have pride in the products that we are putting forward.
Our farmers were protected under the GATT because the levels were set high enough to protect the industry. We have an efficient and stable industry under supply management which is putting forward an inexpensive food product.
I guess I have to ask the hon. member: What more do you want?