Mr. Speaker, it is indeed a great honour for me to support private member's Bill C-221 presented by my esteemed colleague from Lambton-Middlesex. The issue at hand is a grave one for many of my constituents. I will digress for a moment to respond to the member from the third party with regard to three of the observations he made.
The first is in relation to sparsity. The city I come from was so sparse that all the dealers left, that is 10,000. We must be careful when we talk about sparsity. What does sparsity mean? For people in rural Saskatchewan everything is fairly sparse. We have to ensure that dealers have a place and that they are protected.
Let me go one step further and consider a company like McDonald's. Anyone who competes against McDonald's wants to be located right next door because he likes the competition. Yet within the framework of these large companies they are telling the John Deere dealer not to move beyond the scope of John Deere.
People travel hundreds of miles to get parts and this dealer who is having trouble competing in the world around him adds one or two parts to provide that level of service, and they are prepared to see him lose his dealership. On the other hand if they were really competitive and open minded individuals they would say: "No, John Deere we want you to handle that and we want you to handle Case as well. If our machinery is the kind of machinery we say it is, ours will be selected over Case anyway". I appreciate what my
hon. friend from Huron-Bruce who was in that business had to offer on this very important topic.
With regard to the proposal in Bill C-221, the machinery dealers are now saying they are prepared to go along with the proposal on this type of thinking: "We will step in and allow you to sell combines, but we will not allow you to sell tractors". They are going to move in and add additional pressure on the people who are providing that service on their behalf.
I support the bill. I think the bill is well framed. We do have to look at it. The question was raised of why does somebody not move in and take some action against this inappropriate behaviour? That small dealer is not going to go against his company because his survival is based on that company's supporting him with that machinery. If he loses that line, he is out of business. In rural Saskatchewan when someone comes to pick up his machinery, he picks up his fuel, he picks up his food and he picks up his mail. It is another way to ensure that rural Saskatchewan, rural Manitoba and rural Canada in general will eventually die.
It is incumbent on all of us to do something as we speak on this very important private member's bill. Again I commend the member for Lambton-Middlesex for having the courage to come forward and say there is something in this private member's bill that we want everyone to look at. The time has come for us to set aside our personal feelings and ask: Is it good for Canada? Is it good for rural Canada? Is it good for all of us? Can we support it? In my opinion, we can support it and we will support it.
I sincerely thank my friend opposite for allowing me the privilege of taking part in this very serious discussion. I look forward to the statements from my fellow MPs from Saskatchewan.