Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his question. It is an excellent one.
I go back to my comments about having an understanding as to where we want to go in agriculture. Do we want Canadians to have a reliable domestic food supply? I think that if we asked Canadians, they would say yes. Canadians would say yes to an affordable food supply. We have to talk about the multifunctionality of agriculture with respect to the environment. I think Canadians would say it is an important factor. Do we want to have an independence in that sector and that industry? I think Canadians would say yes.
Those are the questions the government did not ask. If Canadians say yes to all of those, then we have to put a philosophy together that says we will make sure that agriculture is going to exist in our country in the next 20 years and that it is going to be in family farms, as the hon. member has said.
Family farms have changed with evolution, too. Family farms now are anywhere from 4,000 to 5,000 acres in my area, where a family farm used to be one section or less.
We have to be flexible enough to recognize that there is an evolution in agriculture, but we have to make sure that there is still an independent ownership of that agriculture, of the people who live in our communities and who want to continue to grow crops in those communities. We have to protect them against some of the issues the hon. member just mentioned. We have to protect them against some of this intrusion into their flexibility and independence.