Mr. Speaker, the agriculture industry is in a crisis across Canada and for very different reasons. Frankly a solution that may work in one region will certainly not address issues in other regions. Geographically Atlantic Canadian agriculture faces very different issues from those of western Canadian agriculture. That is common sense.
The Liberal government changed the EI rules in 1995. It had an extremely deleterious impact on agriculture in Atlantic Canada to the extent that Atlantic Canada farmers in my riding last year lost about 30% of their crops because of the difficulty in attracting seasonal workers.
With the short growing season in Atlantic Canada, seasonal work issues are more important than they are in other regions. It is a growing season issue. The government may have thought that if the rules were changed those people would go from seasonal work to full time work. It did not work that way. Many of those seasonal workers are now on provincial welfare rolls because of this misdirected policy.
The Reform Party is positing some solutions for agriculture in western Canada. As a party that purports to be a national party, I would be interested in its recommendations for the seasonal work issue facing farmers in Atlantic Canada.