Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to reply to this question because I spent quite a bit of time visiting farms in that member's riding. I heard firsthand the concerns of those farmers. Perhaps a point that could be made here is that some of the members of parliament from that area should be representing those people so I would not have to be going there.
In order to develop our policy we spent time on the farms in that area. It is interesting to note that the farmers there have concerns that are very similar to the concerns in the west. One is that the federal government does not have an agricultural policy which deals with concerns right across Canada. It is time we developed a comprehensive agricultural policy.
The member says that some of the problems faced by people in his riding are not the same as those in the west. Of course there are individual characteristics but there are common characteristics. One of the things I am finding that farmers and also small businesses face right across the country is that people bear a huge tax burden which they can do nothing about it.
Built right into the farmers' input cost, be they on the prairies or in Nova Scotia or New Brunswick, is a high level of tax that farmers cannot avoid when the federal government uses employment insurance premiums as a cash cow that is built right into the product. They are pyramided. Whenever the farmer has to buy something he is caught paying that tax and he cannot pass it on. That is just one example.