Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with another member.
One snowy day in January I found the parking lot of my constituency office dwarfed by giant combines and huge tractors. Inside my office a delegation of local farmers waited for me. We had a good discussion.
As each man left we shook hands. One of the last men to leave took my hand and said “Please make those people in Ottawa understand what we are going through”. He had been quiet throughout the meeting, saying nothing. The few words he left with me touched me in a very profound way.
As parliamentarians, as members of the House, the primary reason we are here is to make those people in Ottawa understand what our constituents and collectively what Canadians are going through. It is our duty to bring the stories, the concerns, the challenges, the hopes and the dreams of Canadians to Ottawa. We do this to ensure that decision making reflects the reality of Canadians' lives and that as best as is possible what we do here in this Chamber serves those who look to this place for leadership, for answers and at times for help. If we neglect to do this, the laws we make, the policies and programs we develop, will never meet the needs of Canadians. We will never solve the problems that our nation faces. We will never answer the fundamental questions we are required to address as a nation.
I am honoured to represent the riding of York North, an agriculture rich part of Ontario known for its dairy farms, its grain and cattle and the wonderful vegetables grown on our marsh farms. In fact, when I was a schoolgirl in Thunder Bay we studied the famous Holland Marsh in market gardening.
Because of its proximity to Toronto, York North has the distinction of being a bit of a hybrid riding, an agriculture basin and an important industrial region as well. We are home to many people who commute to work in Toronto, to those who live in the numerous small towns and villages in the rural countryside and to a great many who have farmed in this area for generations and who continue to do so.
Over the years our proximity to Canada's largest city has meant that York North has become increasingly urbanized. This can be said for many ridings represented in the House. A good deal of our farmland has disappeared. Despite this, the myth that the greater Toronto area does not make an important contribution to our agriculture sector can be quickly dispelled. A recent study noted that there are approximately $585 million in farm receipts in the York region alone.
Clearly, the agrifood sector remains vitally important to the economic health of the GTA and the York region. These are hardworking, resilient people who have farmed for generations. They have seen good times and tough times and now many are going through the toughest of times.
I am working closely with the agrifood producers in my riding. One of them, Mr. Don Chapman, has said to me and to the newspapers that “Farmers don't want subsidies. They don't want tax rebates. They don't want to call in crop insurance. They just want to be paid fairly for their products”. The government must listen to their need for immediate assistance and long term support. We produce some of the greatest agricultural products in the world and yet our farmers are in a dire way.
The farmers in my riding tell me Ontario farmers need an increase in the Canadian farm income program of $300 million. This program is split 60:40 with the province, which means that we need Ontario to step up to the plate to the tune of $120 million. Our agriculture sector is a shared responsibility.
The farmers in my riding also talk about longer term solutions and actions. They talk of increased funding to agricultural research and of the development of new markets. They talk of strengthening environmental programs. More important, any income assistance program should help ensure that they receive adequate returns for their investment, their input costs and their labour.
We all know debates are easy but coming up with practical long term solutions is not. Will we settle on some concrete initiatives this evening? I think not. More time is needed in the House on this matter. More time is needed to discuss the many facets of this complicated and lingering problem.
A local vegetable growers' association wrote to me recently to outline some of these facets. In addition to the serious weather pressures faced recently, they wrote that growers must contend with eroded markets due to the consolidation, increased domestic supply, increased year round global supply and free trade agreements that force growers to compete with the treasuries of the United States and the European Union.
The same vegetable growers noted that a pre-harvest survey of growers conducted in July 2000 placed crop losses to the growers of Bradford, Cookstown and East Gwillimbury at approximately 3,500 acres, or an estimated 40% of the total area grown. This is alarming.
There are other aspects to the problem as well. We need to discuss these important issues such as increasing our support for local growers. As Wendell Berry, the noted farmer, essayist and poet once wrote:
The orientation of agriculture to local needs, local possibilities and local limits is indispensable to the health of both land and people, and undoubtedly to the health of democratic liberties as well.
Why do we reach for lettuce trucked here from California instead of that grown perhaps only miles away? There is something so fundamentally wrong about that. How many of us even consider what such a simple choice does to our farmers?
That is why I urge the House and the government to initiate a national debate on food. We as Canadians from urban and rural communities need to understand how the producers of our foodstuffs live. We need to understand why mean farm incomes continue to go down and why input costs continue to rise. We need to understand why the next generation of farmers is not stepping up to take over our farms. In fact, according to some, the next generation has already decided not to. It is the generation after them that we need to woo back to the land.
The hon. member for Calgary Centre referred to this debate as one about food security. I agree with him but I would go further. I believe that this is a question of food sovereignty. If we care about good quality food in the country, and if we care that we as a nation have control over this very basic need, then we must understand that, as Wendell Berry also says “Whatever determines the fortune of the land determines also the fortune of the people.”
A vibrant, sustainable, profitable agricultural sector is part of who we are. If it is suffering, then we are suffering. More important, we become vulnerable.
I call on all members of the House to support our family farms. I call upon the government to do what is right.