Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to speak on the motion before the House. I want to thank the member for Moose Jaw-Lake Centre for bringing this motion forward.
My riding of Annapolis Valley-Hants is the home of a large and diverse agricultural and agri-food sector. I am always pleased, therefore, to have the opportunity to discuss what our government is doing to support this important sector.
I believe all members of the House would agree that the hon. member's commitment to eliminating overlap and duplication in the agricultural sector is a good thing. While I believe this motion is well intentioned, I also believe it is unnecessary.
The hon. member wants to launch negotiations to reassign jurisdictional responsibilities. Canada's Constitution makes agriculture a joint responsibility of the federal and provincial governments. I believe this is one of the areas where flexible federalism is working.
Since 1867 the federal government and the provinces have developed a culture of co-operation. While the Constitution does not specify certain areas as federal and others as provincial, governments have learned, however, to work together without treading on each other's toes.
One area where this has worked well is in trade and market development. While international trade is strictly a federal responsibility and would remain so under the proposed motion, this government recognizes the value of working with the provinces to promote exports of agriculture and agri-food products.
In my riding of Annapolis Valley-Hants, I am pleased to say there is a strong and ever growing value added sector. The processing of hogs, chickens, fruits, and vegetables can be found in a number of my communities. Our government has an important role to play in helping them uncover new market opportunities.
The best way to expand our markets and reach our potential is through co-operation, both with the provinces and the respective industries.
We believe that there is no need to open the Constitution to address these issues of jurisdictional responsibilities. Instead, we must work with our provincial colleagues and focus on innovation and market development. This co-operation takes many forms.
When the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food travelled to Chile, Argentina, and Brazil in March, high level representatives of three provincial governments travelled with him. These joint missions allow the federal government to promote the entire Canadian agricultural and agri-food sector. At the same time, the provinces pursue specific opportunities for their own industries.
We saw another example of two levels of government working together in the final days of the GATT negotiations. Provincial representatives were in Geneva helping reach the draft agreement. Immediately afterwards the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food convened a meeting with our provincial colleagues to plan how we could meet our obligations.
Federal and provincial representatives worked very closely in the following months on the task force on orderly marketing led by the parliamentary secretary. Thanks to their willingness to work together for the common good, our supply managed sectors are moving forward to meet the challenges of the new trade regime.
Another example of this co-operation can be seen in the export targets established for this sector. The industry set for itself a target of $20 billion in agri-food exports by the year 2000. Federal and provincial ministers of agriculture accepted that target and agreed to help each other reach it. They added a further target of regaining Canada's traditional 3.5 per cent share of the global agri-food trade. Reaching this goal would boost our exports to $23 billion annually.
However, setting the goal was the easy part. For our next steps the federal government will continue to work with industry and with the provinces. We must work to provide the programs and initiatives that industry has told us it needs to take advantage of so as to develop new market opportunities. To this end, the department's priorities in the area of trade for the next three years will include a number of initiatives.
We will negotiate further trade access with countries such as Israel and Chile through the NAFTA. As well, we will work with countries such as China through the GATT expansion.
Our government is committed to creating the Canada agri-food marketing council. This will allow the industry to effectively advise government on how best to support exports in achieving their targets.
We will create an agri-food trade service to provide single-window access and market development services. Our government is also committed to consolidating existing market and trade development programs into a single streamlined Agri-food 2000 program. I believe this program will greatly assist industry in its export efforts.
We are working to provide producers and processors with timely information about international markets through a new
agri-food trade network. In doing so, we want to help businesses make better and more informed decisions.
A key priority will be the setting up of the agri-food credit facility. This facility will provide credits worth up to $1 billion for exporters of grain and other agri-food products to offshore private sector buyers. This in turn will help Canadian producers continue to compete effectively and efficiently in the export markets.
By working in tandem with the provinces to achieve these initiatives, our government is committed to helping the agri-food sector reach its export targets. Now is not the time to work at cross purposes with the provinces and debate jurisdictional issues. Now, however, is the time to foster even greater federal and provincial relations. In doing so, our agricultural and agri-food sector will only get stronger.
I again thank the hon. member for bringing this motion forward for debate. I certainly do not question the hon. member's commitment to eliminating inefficiencies and overlap in this important sector. However, I believe we can achieve our goals through federal-provincial co-operation rather than reassigning jurisdictional responsibilities.