Mr. Speaker, allow me to say how pleased I am to see a colleague from northern Ontario in the chair. Congratulations on your appointment to your position.
I am particularly pleased to have an opportunity this evening in this special debate to talk about the issues of agriculture and agricultural producers, as well as to talk about the importance of the broader issues in the way that they impact on rural Canada and rural Canadians.
We are having a discussion tonight, but there are some things that I do not think are up for debate. One of them is the importance of the agricultural sector to Canada, to the Canadian economy and particularly to rural Canada. I do not think there is any question about that. The other thing I do not think there is really much debate about is the fact that there are serious challenges facing the agricultural sector and, as a result of that, challenges that are faced by rural Canada and rural Canadians in general.
I am pleased that we have the opportunity to have this discussion tonight and to have members from all sides of the House participate in the discussion. As the evening goes on and we listen to members from both sides of the House, I hope that we are going to hear suggestions, possible solutions and strategies.
I do not think that members of the House and Canadians watching are really overly interested in people pointing fingers and laying blame. There may be a place and a time for that, but what we are all about in the House, and what I hope the debate is all about tonight, is finding solutions for our agricultural industry, finding the ways that we as a government, that we collectively as members of parliament, can come together, as we need to, to find solutions. I hope that is what this debate is all about.
As the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food pointed out in his comments, a lot has been done in the last several years with respect to responding to the needs of our agricultural producers. The minister talked about the substantial increases in safety nets that have been put in place since he took over the portfolio. He talked about the agreement with the provinces. It was a very important step to bring all 10 provinces together with the federal government to sign an agreement on agriculture. It was an agreement that saw no province receive less funding and several provinces receive increased funding as part of that envelope, and of course last year we saw additional support specifically targeted to Manitoba and Saskatchewan.
As important as agriculture is, and it is extremely important, it is part of a broader context of rural Canada and rural Canadians. It is part of a very special part of the nation. Rural Canada is part of the social fabric of the nation. There are members on all sides of the House who come from rural Canada. It is special and unique place, a place of very special traditions and very special institutions.
When we talk about the agricultural industry, I believe we need to talk as well in the broader context of securing the future of rural Canada. It is important to see the scope and the breadth of rural Canada. Yes, it includes those rural agricultural communities of Saskatchewan and it includes the dairy producers of eastern Ontario. However, rural Canada also includes the mining communities in northern Ontario, as you know very well, Mr. Speaker, and the communities in the interior of British Columbia that depend on forestry or the outports of Newfoundland that depend on fisheries. Rural Canada is, in a large sense, based on our resource industries, including agriculture, and we need to deal not only with agriculture but with all of those issues that are faced by resource industries and by those communities that are dependent on resources for their livelihood.
I believe there is a very clear commitment from the government for dealing with rural Canada. The creation and existence of the position that I hold, that of Secretary of State for Rural Development, is something that had not existed in the government before the Prime Minister made the appointment. It is a belief that we can as a government, that we should as a government, that it is imperative as a government for us to work on the issues of rural Canada and to understand that the challenges faced by rural Canadians, although they share many of the same issues with urban Canadians, are different.
We have to deal with the issue of geography and what that means in delivering services over large distances. We have to deal with the issue of population density and what that means toward attracting investment into rural areas. We have to deal with the whole issue of the cyclical nature of our resource based industries and what that means in terms of the public policy that has to be pursued in order to sustain those communities.
That is what we need to do as a parliament to deal with those special circumstances that are faced by rural Canadians. That is a large part of what this debate is. It is about taking a particular industry that is predominant in rural Canada, understanding that it faces challenges that are specific to rural Canada and to that industry, and responding in a way that makes sense of those challenges.
In terms of dealing with rural Canada we have to make sure of two things. First, we have to make sure that we provide rural Canada and rural Canadians with the tools they need to deal with those challenges. Second, we have empower those communities with the ability to use those tools in a way that makes sense for them.
The government has provided a large number of tools to rural Canada and rural Canadians over the years. Take a look at the infrastructure program, the $2.65 billion. The fact is, when those agreements were signed with the provinces there was a specific amount that was set aside for the rural communities in those various provinces.
Look at the community futures program, which is a program that operates strictly in rural Canada. It is there to provide assistance for community development. It also provides assistance to ensure a strong and vibrant small business sector in those communities. There was a $90 million commitment in the last budget of the federal government to ensure that those community futures programs that operate in rural Canada are sustained and are able to do the work they need to do in order to help those communities.
There are several other tools that I could describe, but those are two very important ones. There are several others that are provided: the community access program, the CARTT program under agriculture and, as I mentioned earlier, the support that is being provided for farm incomes.
It is also important, as we deal with rural Canada and rural Canadians, that we empower communities to use those tools. That is why it is important in the approach that we take as the federal government to ensure something that we call the bottom up approach, one that ensures that communities themselves are empowered to undertake the decisions they need to take to sustain themselves.
It is an understanding that not every rural community is the same and that the challenges that are faced by a rural community in Saskatchewan are different from the ones that you and I face, Mr. Speaker, in northern Ontario and different again from what some of my colleagues face in Yukon, in central Ontario and in other parts of Canada.
That is why it is important to use a bottom up process, one that allows communities to set their priorities, one that allows communities to establish exactly the strategies they want to follow. The role of the federal government and, for that matter, of the provincial governments is to provide those communities with the tools they need to pursue their particular objectives and ensure that they are sustainable into the future.
We are here tonight to talk about agriculture. In a larger sense, we are here to talk about rural Canada, and in a larger sense than that, we are here to talk about Canada. We are here to talk about some very special values.
I have been very fortunate to have the opportunity to raise my family in a rural part of Canada, in my hometown of Gravenhurst in the riding of Parry Sound—Muskoka. It is a very special place and the people who inhabit it are very special people. In my community, we believe in the values of community and in the values of family. I believe it is absolutely essential as we have this debate in the House that we come together to find the ways to sustain rural Canada, to find the ways to ensure that this special way of life we all cherish is able to continue, not just for ourselves but for our children as well.