Mr. Speaker, when I was giving my speech I did not intend it to be some partisan rant against the government. I feel that the government and many people across the country have to recognize this problem. I was trying to portray this as a crisis that is impacting on real people and has to be dealt with immediately.
My colleague makes a good point. Farmers are not treated the same as other people within society. They do not qualify for a lot of the farm programs that are available, nor do they qualify for a lot of the provincial programs that are available because of the nature of their business. Farmers would be the first to say “We do not want that. We want to be treated fairly, the same as everyone else”.
A lot of farmers do not pay a lot of income tax. One of my colleagues opposite said that if they were paying a lot of tax they would be making a lot of money. They are paying a lot of tax, but not income tax. They have property taxes. They have taxes built into all of their inputs. For example, when the government has a program by which it raises Canada pension plan premiums, or uses the employment insurance plan to raise money for whatever programs it wants to implement, farmers pay an inordinate amount of the rise in that tax. I am going to call them taxes because they are put into general revenues. They do not feel it is fair that they should have to pay that.
They pay in ways that the public does not realize. For example, they may have a capital cost on a machine they buy. Every company that employs someone pays Canada pension plan premiums. However, they really do not pay them. They pass that cost on in the price of the machine or whatever product they produce. Farmers have to purchase that. They have no choice as to whether they pay those Canada pension plan premiums that the company has to pay. Built into that particular price is a cost that farmers have no control over.
If the government makes a decision to raise Canada pension plan premiums or employment insurance premiums, farmers end up paying that because they cannot pass that cost on to anybody else. They are caught in the international marketplace. The prices they get for their product are dictated elsewhere. Other companies which subsidize their farmers dump their excess on the world market, depressing prices, and farmers cannot make a living.
Many Canadians do not realize the high amount of tax that farmers pay. The government collects fuel tax. Farmers pay a lot of tax on fuel, as well as fertilizer. Probably 50% of the cost of natural gas is tax. Certain fertilizers are made from natural gas. Therefore farmers pay that 50% tax which is built into the fertilizer they buy.
I was going to talk about child care and how farmers cannot access a lot of these programs. There are many government programs that farmers end up paying for and many Canadians do not realize that this is an unfair way of dealing with the situation.