Madam Speaker, I appreciate the question from my hon. colleague across the way.
I have been trying to say to the House that the farming industry should have never been put in this position. The bill will put farmers out of business. There is no place in the bill to help farmers
rejuvenate or become viable again. It is a last resort to make the pain a little less so they can get out of business.
That is not what we need. We have seen over the last three decades the farm population decrease to an unbelievable percentage. When I started farming a half section was sufficient to feed a family. Today a two-section farmer cannot survive. He has to have his mate either employed off the farm or he has to be involved in some other venture to make the farm viable.
We are taking jobs away from people who deserve then, The farm family should be on the farm making sure that it is running properly and is efficient and viable. That is why this piece of legislation is so bad. It will not give farmers any hope. It will just lessening the pain a bit of getting out of business. I do not know whether they will go on welfare or try to get into a new business, which is not easy today.
What astounds me is in the 1970s a Liberal government told us day after day that we had to have high interest rates to bring down inflation. We had to kill inflation. We have killed inflation. We have low interest rates and farmers do not have the opportunity to be viable. The passage of Bill C-38 will get them out of the system. It just does not make sense.
On the one hand a 24 per cent interest rate is inflationary. On the other hand the banks feel 24 per cent makes them viable. If it is not inflationary when the banks charge it, why is it inflationary when the farmer pays it? Those are the problems I have with some government policies. They like to interfere.
First we had to specialize and it did not work. Then we had to diversify and it did not work. Now we have to get value added industries, and who knows if that will work? If farmers do not get their fingers into value added industries, other industries will benefit and we will have less farmers rather than more. As I said, farming should never have been put into the position where it required this legislation.
Due to government policy over the last 30 years this has happened. It is not because of the way farmers have operated their farms. They have increased production. They have become more efficient. They have worked harder. The taxation system and the government bureaucrats have forced them off the land. That is very easily proven.