Mr. Speaker, I rise this evening to talk about the World Trade Organization, agriculture and the plight of our farmers.
The World Trade Organization talks broke down in Seattle last year and it is a good thing they did. This hiatus gives us some time to reflect upon the Liberal government's blind pursuit of a trade agenda that has been destructive to our farmers. They are hostages of the government's cult-like adherence to the ideology of free trade at any cost.
It is true the government's friends at the Business Council on National Issues repeat the mantra with zeal “free trade, free trade, free trade” and our so-called national newspapers sing the same hymn “globalize, globalize, globalize”. Our trade minister, our agriculture minister, our Prime Minister are all choirboys in the same chorus.
People in my part of the country are asking interesting questions. They are saying that if this free trade is such a wonderful thing, then why are we, the grain farmers, in such dire straits today?
Agriculture exports have increased by 65% over the past five years and farm receipts have increased by more than 43% over the last 10 years. Why is it in these circumstances that farmers' net income has actually dropped by 11%? Why are the very people whose hard work provides the statistics the government uses to promote its trade agenda losing their farms?
During the Christmas break I visited some of the farm communities in my riding. I was told that one small community had lost four families since last fall and the prediction was that it would lose at least that many again before spring seeding. I have spoken with farmers, with their family members, with regional municipality councillors and reeves. Believe me, there is a very crucial need for some support and reinvestment in rural Canada, especially in western Canada.
It is time for the government to come out of its trance and to realize that farmers in western Canada are paying the price for a warped trade agenda. They are paying with their farms, with the break-up of their families and some tragically with their lives as they are unable to bear the stress any longer.
Canadian farmers, in particular those who grow grains, are facing the worst situation since the Great Depression. The government's own income statistics and forecasts tell us that the next five years will not be any easier for the thousands of families that put bread on our tables. For farmers in my province of Saskatchewan the news is grim. Incomes for 2001, 2002 and 2003 will be below zero in the negative range.
If the Seattle talks had gone as the faceless WTO bureaucrats had wanted, our farmers would have been even more vulnerable to the cold winds of international trade. Since 1993 our federal government has cut its support for grain farmers by 60% all in the name of liberalized trade.
My colleagues in the New Democratic Party and I have been calling for the government to set aside $1 billion from the $100 billion forecast surplus for the next five years, a mere 1% of that, to pay for some support to farm families who need it terribly badly.
Canadian farmers represent a mere 3% of our population. Through their hard work they support about 14% of our jobs and one-quarter of our trade surplus, but they are asking why they do not benefit from it. We are saying that it is the government's responsibility to see that they do benefit from it rather than being left to twist in the wind.