Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time.
As the chief critic for the Reform Party on agriculture I find it a pleasure to be here today to speak on this Reform supply day motion dealing with the income crisis currently occurring in Canada.
We found it necessary to bring this supply motion forward and to bring a motion forward in the agriculture standing committee to move the government along on this issue and recognize there is a problem today and that it will be even worse in the future. There is every indication that the government was not prepared to take any immediate action to deal with this problem and was looking down the road that maybe it would solve itself.
I would like to make a correction to what has been going on in the House. A number of members on the government side have repeatedly stated that we have raised this issue simply as a western crisis. We well know that when one sector of the agriculture economy goes into a crisis situation on the income side that it is not too long until a major portion of the Canadian economy follows suit.
I refer directly back to the comments by the member for Calgary Southwest. He said we recognize that there is a Canadian income crisis which is why we have raised this debate today. Politics has to take a back seat to the issue facing people today.
Many farmers even when they are making a profit are not in the rich and wealthy category. We have heard the same story today as we have heard in the House in past weeks, the same reasons why the government feels it did not have to really do anything. It was kind of along the idea that the global market has failed us, the farm income crisis is due to the Asian flu or the Russian economy going down the tubes. It is just a cycle.
Also we have heard that NISA and crop insurance will address all the problems. That is just not the case and I have noted the government is moving along the road to admitting that there is a major problem and that something has to be done. Tomorrow the agriculture ministers are appearing in Ottawa from across the country and that will help move this issue along further.
If the government is sincere about ensuring the future of agriculture it will have to take the actions required so that a farmer does not need two or three jobs off the farm. The minister of agriculture has made comments to the effect that the farm economy goes up and down and suggested that farmers look for some outside source of income. A viable agriculture operator and his family cannot be put under greater stress by getting a job to supplement his farm income when it is not sufficient for him to make a living.
That suggestion is fine for the small farmer who maybe has only a few acres or is only part time farmer at best, but it certainly cannot be applied to our commercial farmers. The government has to create an environment which producers can make an adequate living from farming. I believe that we are debating this issue today because the government has failed to do its job over the past 30 years without going into a long history of 100 years ago.
A government needs the foresight to look down the road and have in place programs and policies that enable a vital industry like agriculture to continue through the good and bad times that are always coming along. I do not just fault the Liberal government on this. The Conservative government shared in that past.
I remember back in 1970 when wheat was $1 a bushel in Interlake and Manitoba.
The few people who would buy it tried putting it through livestock and that soon went down the tubes also.
We have had this before and somehow, someday a government has to put in place programs and policies that will ensure farmers carry through when the next downturn comes along. That opportunity is now available to this government and that is where the farming industry is looking for solutions.
The priorities of this government also need to be examined. Education and health are major issues and major programs that have to be fully funded and cared for. These should be at the top level of this government's next budget. In addition, agriculture should be added as a top level area to be addressed in the next budget.
Some of the examples of misguided priorities have probably been examined here today. They include the spending with regard to the Firearms Act. I would be surprised if my friend from Yorkton—Melville did not mention that. But $330 million going into a program that will not do any good shows a misguided attempt to priorize government spending to an area that will buy votes in some sectors of the country, big cities perhaps, but it will not do anything effective for the country.
There is a lot of money in many parts of government departments similar to that wasteful spending that could be marshalled to be used to deal with the crisis before us.
We have had several speakers from the different parties and I note that our friends to the left, the NDP, are singing along the lines of $1 billion here or $1 billion there. That is not the solution to this crisis or the long term crisis. The Conservative Party has been repeating some of the same things and I find that disappointing also.
The minister has stated this government has frozen user fees for the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. What about eliminating that agency? What about a corresponding reduction in income taxes? What about the cost recovery programs of the Canadian grain commission? What about pilot fees on the Great Lakes? Will the minister commit to eliminating these costs today?
In short, we have to create an environment with a viable farming community and we must reduce the cost of government to enable us to do that.
I end with an analogy. We had the famous Prime Minister batter situation arise and I think the Prime Minister is really more of a pitcher. The pitcher is supposed to be the leader of the team. He has the ball in his hands and it is up to him to throw that ball and make the next action, address the issue in front of him.
If this pitcher, this little guy from Shawinigan, throws the next baseball into the dirt on this issue, the taxpaying farmers of Canada, along with many other taxpayers, will soon recall him from the team and probably bring in a reliever.