Mr. Speaker, I rise today in large part in response to the agriculture minister's tour of some of the drought affected areas of Canada last summer.
In July the federal minister of agriculture said that farmers would have to rely on existing safety net programs such as crop insurance. He dodged requests for government action to alleviate the effects of the drought by saying he wanted to see the results of the harvest first before assessing the damage. I did not find that to be at all unreasonable.
By October 17 I felt that the crop was in the bin and indeed it was because there was an early harvest. It was interesting that Agriculture Canada's own statistics had forecast that realized net farm income is expected to drop next year by more than 70% in agricultural provinces like Saskatchewan and Prince Edward Island, and by 32% across Canada.
The answer I received from the minister was churlish to put it mildly. He chose to focus on realized net farm income, stale-dated statistics from this year which show that farm income is up over previous years.
I find it extremely unfortunate that the agriculture minister at least on this occasion was deliberately obtuse, insisting that the farm outlook is rosy when every farmer out there knows that is not the case. The minister knows full well that there is a farm income crisis looming with huge implications for agricultural provinces like the two I just mentioned.
As a quick aside, the drought since August 1 continues. If we look at a moisture map of western Canada, there is 40% less moisture in many of those locales. Without significant snow pack and spring runoff and rains, we will have a deep problem again next year. Because there are apparently no answers forthcoming or ability to pressure inside the cabinet, reality is being ignored and old data is being introduced.
In Qatar, where the minister was earlier this month, there was a lot of fanfare about an agreement to negotiate a reduction in international subsidies. We have asked what plans the government had to increase support for Canadian farmers until those subsidies begin to decline. The response we continue to get is that the government has to revamp the existing safety net package, that it is not working as well as it should to address the problems created by things like the drought and trade-distorting subsidies.
Clearly the government has no plans for significant amounts of new money to assist Canadian farmers while we await the new round of negotiations to level the playing field. That new round will probably be eight to 10 years down the road and that probably is an optimistic scenario. Even at that time it is not likely to mean all that much for our Canadian farmers.
The point I am trying to make is that the government will have to seize the bull by the horns. It has to put some money into agriculture to put our farmers on a level playing field with their counterparts in Europe and the United States in particular. Then as subsidies begin to come down we will all come down in concert. To expect our farmers to live this way for the next 10 years will mean that there will be far fewer farmers at the end of that time.