Mr. Speaker, this government and the previous government offered deregulation and competitiveness as the only answers to globalization. Yet the very price of deregulation is making competitiveness almost impossible for global traders like western Canadian farmers.
This government has removed the cost guarantees that went with the Crow benefit and is promising to remove the price ceilings on freight rates by 1999.
Control over farm costs has virtually disappeared. Fertilizer and fuel prices have taken huge unwarranted price jumps lately. Fertilizer costs are up 20 per cent or more over last year. Big fuel price increases are well documented all across the country. Combined with freight cost increases of 100 per cent, how can the grains industry, which has been struggling already, continue to be competitive?
Deregulation theory promised to cut costs, not raise them. Was it all a big lie?