Mr. Speaker, it gives me pleasure to be able to address the issues brought forward by my colleague from the Conservative Party regarding the agrifood industry and agriculture in general.
The only problem with the wording of the supply motion “That this House regrets the failure of the government—”, is that it should be replaced with that this House is downright angry with this government for its absolute failure to recognize the importance of agriculture and the food industries in the country. It has failed desperately to show any leadership.
This was demonstrated just recently when two premiers from the provinces of Saskatchewan and Manitoba met with the government in all sincerity doing their utmost to try to help the situations in their provinces and were literally snubbed by the Liberal government and our Prime Minister. I think that is totally disgraceful and it should make us all very angry.
The government does not have any long term vision whatsoever. It is bouncing around all over the place with different little programs that never seem to quite work and never seem to fill the bill of what needs to happen.
The one thing that needs to happen more than anything else is that the government, for heaven's sake, must start to realize the importance and significance of the food and agricultural industries.
I am really tired of sitting in the House of Commons and voting on agricultural issues that would be of benefit to our farmers and fishermen and listening to courts making decisions, such as the Marshall decision. The House sits here and votes on what should happen, while 70 or 80 highfalutin Bay Street lawyers, who probably do not realize that milk does come from a cow and not from a carton, or that cereal is made from grain and does not come out of a box, simply sit on that side of the House and vote according to the wishes of their leader. They do not even know what the issue really is. They do not realize how serious the problem is.