Mr. Speaker, it is with a great deal of sadness that I enter the debate tonight, another emergency debate on the farm crisis. We have had all too many of them in the House over the last seven years.
Is there a farm crisis today? Yes, there certainly is. Before I deal more specifically with the farm crisis, I must state that not all the industry is in trouble. Supply management commodities are doing okay. In the late sixties farmers in the country came together with the support of government to develop a system in which to market their product and gain fair returns on their labour investment.
Those marketing systems are still in place today because of the hard work of government members. We were able to retain those supply management systems at the GATT negotiations and the WTO discussions. We need to continue to fight to retain them.
If it were left up to the opposition party those kinds of systems would be destroyed. Consumers are doing well by supply management systems. They have cheap, high quality food and farmers get good returns for what they produce. There is balance.
Yes, there is a farm crisis in Canada and, to a great extent, globally. As mentioned previously, the CFA, the Canadian Federation of Agriculture, on February 6 held a food freedom day on which, by February 6, the average Canadian had earned enough to buy a year's supply of groceries at the grocery store level.
What about farmers' raw material costs freedom day? That would have been on about January 9 or 10. The rest of the time is taken up with the profits of the chain stores.
The CFA also mentioned that in Canada the ratio of cost of food to personal disposable income is only 9.8%. Food is actually too cheap in this country.
I want to put the farm crisis into some perspective. I will quote a statement made by the NFU, the National Farmers Union. It states:
The market is failing farmers, it is failing all around the world, and it has been since at least the late 1970s. The market is failing to return a fair and adequate share of the consumer dollar to farmers. And it is failing to allocate to farmers a reasonable return on labour, management, and equity from our agri-food system's huge revenue stream. Moreover, this market failure is entirely predictable. It is a direct result of dramatic market power imbalances between agri-food industry multinational corporations and the family farms that must do business with these firms.
When we look at a graph, it is interesting what the NFU is really saying. It says that some people are doing okay at the expense of the farm community. If we look at a graph of the increasing farm sector trade, we find that exports from the farm sector are going up about 60% but the net income for the farm sector, having produced that economy for everyone else in the system, is going down to somewhere around 6%. Some people are gaining as a result of the farmers' productivity.
The second quote I want to turn to is by Elbert van Donkersgoed of the Christian Farmers Federation. He stated that “the year 2001 looks like another year of running with the bulls”, comparing it to Pamplona, Spain. He went on to state:
For farmers, running with the bulls has become a necessity. Massive agribusiness conglomerates manage the food chain. There are fewer and fewer buyers for farm products. The competitive marketplace has become an endangered species. But farmers are an accommodating lot. They go along to get along. They will find the silver lining: economic doctrine says the giantification of Tyson (Foods) should deliver the much-heralded efficiencies of scale. Besides, quasi-independent farmers running as a pack in a narrow market lane is thrilling; and the bulls can get around to goring only a few.
I would suggest that year after year there are less and less of those farmers left.
He goes on to say:
Truckloads of grain will leave farms across Canada for yet another year of meagre returns. Canadian governments have been counting on the bulls of international trade, the United States and the European Union, to modify their subsidizing ways.
I raise those points because many out there are suggesting the serious problems in the marketplace are functioning in the farmers' interests. However, those are just two points of view.
I listened to the opposition and to the mover of the motion. The concern I have with tonight's debate is that, as usual, rather than proposing solutions they are attacking the government. I would love to get into a debate with opposition members in terms of some of the points they raised. It is hard to resist the urge to do that.
I feel very passionately about the supply management system, which the Alliance would destroy. I feel very strongly about the Canadian Wheat Board, which the Alliance attacks. The Canadian Wheat Board in this difficult market has been able to maximize returns, such as they are, to primary producers.