Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to raise a question with my colleague and friend from Yorkton-Melville.
His earlier comments to the House were quite well received. However, I want to bring to his attention some comments which were recently made in a committee of the House by the Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities concerning the future of agriculture and rural communities on the prairies.
One of the comments made by the Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities was with respect to the government's claims that crop diversification and value added production will be a direct result of the elimination of the Crow benefit. The Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities said this in its opening remarks:
It is difficult to predict with any degree of accuracy whether the elimination of the Crow benefit will expedite the move toward diversification and value-added opportunities.
It goes on to say:
It must be mentioned-that lack of capital is a significant obstacle to the realization of many successful value-added businesses.
It concluded the section by saying:
Our association has made consistent statements to federal and provincial governments that the establishment of equity and/or capital venture funds is necessary for Saskatchewan to fully realize growth in value-added processing.
I believe very strongly that the position brought forward by the Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities represents the view of many communities in rural Saskatchewan. They realize that with the withdrawal of the Crow benefit their communities will lose income and will need to find alternative sources of income to maintain not only their tax base but their quality of life.
The development of equity funds is one way to ensure that investment capital will exist. However we all know that the number of communities that will lose significant amounts of money will never be in a position to attract all of the investment necessary.
Will the member for Yorkton-Melville inform the House whether he supports the Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities' position in this matter and what sort of investment opportunities he thinks will result because of the loss of the Crow?