Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from the New Democratic Party for his comments and his intervention. He certainly raises a very valid point. What I was trying to drive home during my brief remarks is that I think it is incumbent upon all Canadians to look inside themselves at this juncture in our history to decide what priority they place on our agriculture industry.
The hon. member was referring to the level of support that other countries give to their agricultural sector, whereas in Canada, especially in the grain sector, we have seen a diminishing level of support from the federal government over a number of years. We could debate all day how much our national treasury can afford to support an individual sector of the economy.
The member referred to his party's minority report on the report of the standing committee. Our agricultural critics also put forward a minority report in which we listed eight positive things, other than just an ad hoc propping up of the sector, the government could undertake to assist farmers.
The farm safety net programs must be reformed to ensure long term stable protection. That was one of the things that we put forward, something that a lot of farmers have advocated for a long time. A lot of farmers have been involved through their local producer organizations in promoting an expanded NISA program, the Net Income Stabilization Act.
The federal government could lower the costs it imposes on producers by giving general tax reductions, lowering user fees charged by the Department of Agriculture and Agri-Food and reducing federal taxes charged on the manufacture, transportation and sale of agricultural input such as fertilizer and especially fuel.
We hear members raising the issue of the high cost of fuel in the House every day. That is something the government could move on. It could do something about that. It could bring down the taxes on fuel. It would have a direct impact on the input costs of farmers as they do their planning for this spring's seeding.
As well the government could further lower the costs of farmers by enabling a competitive, commercially accountable grain handling and transportation system. Many parliamentarians from all parties have talked about changes to our transportation and grain handling system, yet very little is being done.
The official opposition, the Reform Party of Canada, has identified a whole raft of things in our minority report, as have other parties, that the government could be doing to assist farmers. Yet we see nothing but a photo op and government members saying they will throw another couple of hundred million dollars at it. Maybe it will eventually get to the farmers and maybe it will not, but they will throw it at them in the hope that it solves the problem. Farmers especially know darn well it will not solve the problem.