Mr. Speaker, it gives me great pleasure to say a few words on Bill C-92. I know I only have a couple of minutes to speak to the budget. It is a budget that I think is notable.
I want to say a little bit about rural Canada and the impact this budget has in the rural areas. Rural Canada is an area that has really been recognized for the first time in a budget by a government that directly looked at solving some of its problems.
In the speech from the throne the government made a commitment to look at rural Canada and to try to make sure that it shares in the economic growth that is happening across the country. I would like to thank all our members from the rural caucus in the Liberal Party and the Minister of Finance for taking the opportunity, after listening to our concerns, to address some of the concerns that we have in rural areas so that we too can share in the economic growth in the country.
I want to highlight a few areas that the minister has touched on. One of those areas deals with the Farm Credit Corporation. He
made sure that the Farm Credit Corporation had more money in which to invest in rural areas.
The trade statistics show that agricultural exports have increased some 30 per cent over the last three years. We seem to be booming in exporting our products. One of the areas in which we need to do more is to make sure that the further processing of goods, especially in the agricultural area, can get to the export market. In order to do that the farmers, who have a lot of really good ideas, need some cash to invest in these products and to get them into the market.
On the one hand the Minister for International Trade has done a good job in getting the information out to these small businesses, these farmers, and to make sure that they are represented in our embassies around the world and that their product is there.
On the other hand, the Minister of Finance has made sure that cash is there. He has made sure that the Farm Credit Corporation has cash available to help invest in these small industries to make sure that they can get up, get running and get these further processed goods exported around the world. I want to thank him for that.
I would like to highlight a point that the hon. member for Parry Sound-Muskoka was pushing very strongly and I know the Minister of Finance thanked him for that, and that is the whole of tourism and the importance of tourism to job creation in Canada. The rural areas have a lot to show. A lot of tourists come to the rural areas but there is not as much co-ordination and there are not the groups in place to help co-ordinate a tour group or a tourist who comes in to certain parts of Canada.
The Minister of Finance in his wisdom and the cabinet agreed to put some money into tourism. I know all hon. members will agree it does a lot in helping to create jobs, especially in small tourist operations in rural and remote Canada.
Obviously education and health care were in the budget. These areas are important for rural Canada. I want to thank the minister for investing in the Internet and making sure that we in the rural areas are up to speed so to speak in having access to the Internet.
In fact our young people and our students can now in any community with a population of over 400 have access to the Internet. That is a very important initiative of this government that really helps in making sure that people in rural and remote Canada can get into the new technologies that I think are going to be important in rural areas in terms of job creation.
It is also important to note this. I want to talk personally about my riding of Haldimand-Norfolk and the importance of taxation. In my nine years here, it seems that every year, the Minister of Finance has come up and once again increased the taxes on tobacco.
I want to thank him from my constituents' point of view for not raising the taxes on tobacco in the budget. As members know, to tobacco farmers in the community surrounding my area, the size of tax on tobacco is important, although not on the sales. It does not have a big influence in the production, but in giving them a good feeling and understanding of how the system works.