Madam Speaker, I would like to cordially congratulate the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Agriculture for his contribution to the debate today the purpose of which is to expose the unjustness of the particular treatment that the government will unfairly give to the west.
I found it particularly entertaining, since he knows the farming sector so well, when he talked about cows producing astronomical quantities of milk. I am proud to announce that in 1990, the champion milk producer, a Holstein cow, lived in my riding, in the parish of Plessisville.
I would also like to say that the parliamentary secretary certainly must frequent different dairy producers than I do. I have with me a photocopy of an editorial by Claude Rivard which was published in the newspaper Le producteur de lait québécois . Mr. Rivard is no small fry. He is the president for Quebec and vice-president of Dairy Farmers of Canada. Obviously, the title of his editorial is ``The federal government's heavy hand''.
I would now like to contradict what the parliamentary secretary said regarding research and development in the farming sector. Mr. Martin's axe has not just nicked dairy and transportation subsidies. The government has announced that it intends to completely withdraw from all dairy control programs within three years. How can we produce world champion cows with no control in the sector? Research and development are the cornerstones of dairy production.
Had it not been for previous governments investing public funds in genetics and milk recording, we would still be like some Latin American and South or North African countries. Within three years, the federal government will have withdrawn from the industry and be quite proud of itself.
In 1990, the top dairy cow in Canada was in the parish of Plessisville. Yet, in 1995, the government cuts funding. It announces plans to cut it completely within three years.
The hon. parliamentary secretary raised another interesting point in his remarks. He said, and this is true, that, in Ontario, milk production is about 50 per cent for industrial use and 50 per cent for drinking. In Quebec, this is not the case, of course.
Does he not realize that years of relentless work have gone into milk pricing? We are in the process of narrowing the gap and, 16 or 17 months from now, on August 1, 1996, we should have achieved uniformity in milk pricing.
However, by cutting $1.51 per hectolitre off the price of industrial milk, he just increased the price differential between the two again. Of course, milk producers are digging into the temporary equivalent stabilization fund but there is hardly any money left in this fund. I know what is going to happen. The government will boast, saying: "We did not raise taxes; we did not have the heart to do that". It cuts its tax transfers to the provinces, forcing the provinces to cut their transfers to the municipalities and, in turn, the municipalities will be forced to increase our property taxes.
What will milk producers do come August 1? They will go to the Canadian Dairy Commission and ask that the price of their industrial milk be raised. Then, milk processors will raise the price of butter, cheese, yogurt and ice cream by 25, 30, 35 cents a pound. And the government will say: "But we are not increasing taxes". What it takes away from one group, this group has to make others pay for.