Mr. Speaker, last Monday I had the opportunity to meet with a group of farmers in the lovely town of Melita, Manitoba. This town, in the southwest corner of the province of Manitoba, is located in the centre of the area that bore the brunt of last year's high water.
The farmers I met with were representative of the area's best. Smart and industrious, these farmers are successful in a very difficult industry. The product of their labour contributes strongly to Canada's exports and is the foundation upon which a number of other industries run.
This year they have suffered two blows. The flooding of international markets with low priced goods has reduced their returns from their labour. The flooding of their land has made it impossible to plant much of the available acreage. They made the point to me that farming is a very difficult business subject to the vagaries of weather, disease, insects, drought one year, flood the next. These are the norms of the industry and they accept that. They know that there will be good years and bad years.
Now, however, a new blight has emerged, one which they cannot fight alone and one which will overwhelm them if we do not offer some support. The blight is the subsidies that are given to farmers in the U.S. and Europe. Eighty percent of our farmers sell their goods in international markets and these subsidies cause—