Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to speak today on motion M-314 put forward by my colleague from Moose Jaw-Lake Centre.
I find it interesting that my Liberal colleagues speak of the lack of necessity for this bill. Both the hon. member for Lisgar-Marquette, who just spoke, and the hon. member for Moose Jaw-Lake Centre, who proposed this motion, are active farmers who are struggling under the inefficiencies and the problems of the system as it is now and are seeking to put solutions forward.
The agricultural industry is intricately tied into the whole social fabric of Canada. Over one million Canadians today are involved in agriculture. Many of our peers in this Chamber, as I have mentioned, have left their farms to represent their friends and neighbours in the House of Commons. Millions of other Canadians only need to look back a generation or two to find a parent or a grandparent who worked the land. My own father ranched at the Springhouse ranch and my grandfather at the 141 mile ranch in the Cariboo district of British Columbia.
The product of the hard work of our Canadian farmers and ranchers sustained our troops during two great wars, saved the lives of millions of the world's poorest nations, and feeds the needy and destitute of today. They fed the world for decades and will continue to do so for decades to come. We are blessed with an amazing basket that feeds the hungry of the world. The question remaining, though, is how to continue feeding the world in the most efficient way possible.
The agriculture industry of today is vastly different from that of 50 years ago. Today, agriculture is controlled and managed through a number of government departments and private sector organizations. We have bureaucrats in downtown Ottawa studying regional farming policies, and at the same time their counterparts in the ten provincial capitals are duplicating many of the same services the federal government is offering. On top of these bureaucracies are a variety of government agencies and private corporations that work in the industry.
Combine all these agencies and government departments together and you have a tangle of rules, restrictions, and regulations that hamper initiative and change. What is needed is a new vision, a new and better approach to the management of agriculture.
There are three starting points the government must first realize before a positive change can take place. The three points I refer to are that each region of our country has unique and diverse needs; that each government has a responsibility to respond to these needs, using its respective strengths; and that each person within the agriculture community has a strong desire to go about their business in the most efficient and profitable way possible. Let me take a moment to expand on these three points.
First, on the uniqueness of each region, I have had the privilege of travelling through and working in many of the agriculture regions of our country. I have worked in the cattle ranches in the British Columbia interior. I have walked through prairie wheat fields. I have driven by the corn and tobacco fields of southern Ontario. I hope some day to visit some of the farms in Quebec, as I have had the opportunity to do in the Maritimes, particularly in Hants County, where the member for Annapolis Valley-Hants comes from.
What has always struck me is how distinctive each region is and how unique each region's needs are. Do these regions have common concerns? Of course they do. These concerns should be pursued in a united manner. Yet the regions do not share common ground on every issue, and we as parliamentarians must keep this in mind.
Second, on responding to those needs, this year the federal government will spend over $2.2 billion to support our agriculture industry, and the provinces will contribute a similar amount, meaning that almost $4.5 billion will be spent on agriculture programs this year. This works out to over $157 per Canadian or over $332 per taxpayer. That is enough to feed one person for ten weeks, and perhaps longer with careful shopping. Are Canadians getting value for that money? According to the farmers and the taxpayers, the answer is no. Is there room for improvement? Of course there is room for improvement.
For that $4.5 billion the various levels of government manage to keep over 20,000 civil servants on the payroll, 10,000 at the provincial level and another 10,000 at the federal level. According to my colleague from Moose Jaw-Lake Centre, this works out to one agricultural civil servant for every 14 farms.
The limited money remaining after paying these government employees goes into numerous support programs. These federal and provincial programs often end up overlapping each other, resulting in farmers wasting valuable time and paperwork, not to mention the tax dollars lost through duplication.
To respond to the needs of farmers, governments must play to their inherent strengths. That is, the federal government directing its resources to such areas as international trade, monetary policy, whole farm income stabilization, and safety hazards, and the provinces more locally investing their money in such areas as resource management and human resources.
There is the desire for each stakeholder to go about his or her business in the most efficient way possible. We must begin talking more about empowerment, giving individuals more autonomy in their everyday lives.
It is amazing how bureaucratic control has crept into so much of our Canadian way of life, stifling the very initiative it set out to reinforce. Extending autonomy can involve encouraging the private sector to become more involved so the market system can work to the advantage of the farmer, not just to satisfy regulations that are increasingly failing to meet the needs they were designed for.
We in Parliament must be constantly asking ourselves how we as law makers and the civil servants who enforce the laws and implement the regulations are interfering with the private sector. Are we in its way? If so, how can we move out of the way?
I urge the minister of agriculture and his provincial counterparts to be constantly asking the same questions asked during the federal program review for each and every subsidy and program in the department.
Does the program continue to serve the public interest? Is there a legitimate and necessary role for the government in this area? Is the current role of the federal government appropriate, or can the programs be turned over to the provinces or even eliminated in the name of efficiency and well-being for the individual farmer and the agriculture industry? What activities could be transferred to the private or volunteer sectors? If the government program continues, how can its efficiency be improved? Is the final package of programs affordable and if not which of these programs could and should be abandoned?
My colleague from Moose Jaw-Lake Centre has taken an important first step by proposing a new dialogue between the players involved in the agriculture industry. I hope this debate on Motion No. M-314 will be an important first step in bringing about substantial change in the agriculture policy of Canada.
I ask and encourage all members of the House to support this motion.