Mr. Speaker, the Government of Canada endorsed the cruel and useless bombing of Iraq by the United States and the United Kingdom without any regard for the consequences of those illegal bombings on the people of Iraq, wounding many and probably killing some.
Ironically, one of the consequences of our country endorsing that bombing of innocent civilians is that it has also thrown a financial bomb at Canadian wheat producers.
Last year our farmers exported 262,000 tonnes of wheat to Iraq, worth about $50 million, primarily from my home province of Saskatchewan. One of the results of the endorsement by our government of the bombing of Iraq is that Iraq has now informed our Canadian wheat exporters that it will no longer accept wheat from Canada. This has just driven another financial spike into the coffin of our prairie grain producers.
Our farmers are already suffering enough. They are in Ottawa today lobbying for better prices and for a better deal from our federal government and now they have lost yet another market because of the action of the government across the way.
Let us stop the bombing in Iraq. Let us lift the economic sanctions and save another market for Canadian grain producers.