Madam Speaker, in perpetuity are two words that have devastated western farmers and made them so mad. They are madder than a boiled owl when they hear the words spoken, so I hesitate to even use them.
That Liberal promise along with the promise of the Conservatives over the years assured western Canadian farmers that the Crow rate, which was a subsidy for exporting grain, would be kept in perpetuity. Western Canadian farmers certainly knew better than the Liberal and Conservative governments. They realized that the Crow rate was not allowing western farmers to diversify their incomes. As a result when the Crow rate went it was beneficial in that farmers diversified and have certainly improved the western farm economy in that regard.
The real devastation regarding the income problem and the cash taken out of farmers' pockets when the subsidy was not received anymore was that starting in 1993 with the trade agreement and in 1995 with the federal budget, domestic support for agriculture was drastically reduced by the government in an attempt to balance its deficit. In doing so it brought in user fees and all kinds of charges, increased taxes and all of the things that have taken away the meagre incomes farmers were getting from exporting their grain.
It is domestic support that is lacking from the government. We heard it today in question period. Farmers are asking for that support to be reinstated at least to the level where they can remain viable and on the farm, to provide Canadians a secure domestic food supply. It is in our national interest that that be done.
What do we see? Nothing is happening by way of money for the majority of farmers in western Canada in particular, and in Ontario, to keep them on the farm and keep the farms going. What will happen? It will end up that this country's farmland will be owned by absentee landlords.