Mr. Speaker, the member for Lethbridge certainly has a lot of expertise in the farming industry as well as considerable expertise in the legislative world.
I draw his attention to a comment made by the parliamentary secretary on March 3, as recorded in Hansard when he said:
I will now turn to the grain provision. Grain has been declared for the general advantage of Canada. It is a multibillion dollar industry which exports to over 70 countries worldwide. The livelihood of 130,000 farmers and their families depend-
Certainly I would not want to diminish in any way the importance of agriculture to the Canadian economy, but when a provision in the labour code bill says that grain arriving at port will be loaded we are possibly asking longshoremen to cross picket lines set up by other unions to load the grain.
When we single out grain as being "declared for the general advantage of Canada", practically every other major export good produced in Canada such as potash, petrochemicals and forestry products could be construed as being for the good of Canada as well.
Would the member for Lethbridge give us his thoughts on those items?