Mr. Speaker, the Canadian Alliance has today brought forward this motion suggesting very clearly and telling the government quite clearly that $900 million is the minimum amount of money required to get our grains, oilseeds, corn and soybean producers through this spring seeding.
Only $500 million of that money was brought forward by the agriculture minister. As a result, I have found it necessary to bring the issue of agriculture and the income situation back to the House and once again put it to the members. We are moving past the cabinet, which produces half measures, to the House as a whole so that individual MPs can stand in their places and say through their votes whether or not they support agriculture.
This is a crisis. This is not some frivolous exercise we are going through in the House. This is a crisis.
However, agriculture is not in total crisis. There are many sectors that are doing fine. The problem the agriculture minister has is that the government has not put forward any long term policies that would help the sectors that are affected when the price cycle hits bottom, which is a normal thing with agriculture commodities around the world and in Canada. The government has no policies that come into play to give those farm sectors and commodity groups not a profit but the ability to continue to farm and to contribute to Canada's national product and to the food supply we all need.
People have been asking if this should even be done. Our food supply is essential to the well-being of our country. It contributes dramatically to the well-being of every Canadian. Having a viable agricultural sector, with the expertise required to be a farmer these days, is in our national interest and our vital interest. We must maintain that infrastructure and ability in Canada so that we can continue to feed ourselves.
I have mentioned the agriculture minister. He has brought programs forward and he will be talking about all the money that has been put out to farmers. However the last statistics I have on the AIDA program, for the years 1998 and 1999, show that only 62% of that money has been given out. That is part of the problem. Not only is the money insufficient but it is not necessarily given out.
I will deal a little more with the politics of this and the responsibility of backbenchers. Ultimately the cabinet has responsibility but we, as individual members of parliament, have one member, one vote. My vote is every bit as good as the minister of agriculture's in that we each have one of 301 votes in the House. If each member represents their constituents, then we will see the motion pass at the end of the day because many MPs in the House know that farming is essential to the country and that the $400 million is essential to farming.
Backbenchers on the government side, including the Ontario rural caucus chair, have indicated that the opposition should be doing more on the issue and that somehow that would translate into more action by the cabinet. We have been doing quite a lot, right back to 1998 when I became chief agriculture critic for the official opposition. We have had motion after motion.
The agriculture minister was giving speeches in Regina and suggested to the agriculture committee that we should go out west and hold hearings for farmers. The chair of the day from Charleswood St. James—Assiniboia said that was a good idea and nine meetings were held. I put a motion forward saying that not only should we hold hearings in western Canada to listen to farmers but that we should go into Ontario.
It is not enough to have fancy words and good speeches telling everyone how sincere we are about the issues.
When I was at the agriculture committee there were members who voted against my motion to hold hearings on safety net issues in Ontario. Had those hearings been held I think perhaps the government would have understood from farmers back in 1998-99 that the crisis was real and that it had to do something.
The members who voted against me and against holding hearings in Ontario were the members for Gatineau, Dufferin—Peel—Wellington—Grey, Whitby—Ajax, Hastings—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, Kitchener Centre, Leeds—Grenville and Lambton—Kent—Middlesex.
The member for Toronto—Danforth has professed quite loudly that he is a big supporter of farmers. I take him at his word. He held a concert in Toronto and a big dinner here in the Hall of Honour. It was a big public relations exercise, for all apparent purposes. Here at the Hall of Honour dinner farmers believed they and MPs were signing a petition that would result in action being taken by the House. That was not within the rules of the House. It was a deception for the farmers who thought backbench Liberals would do something.
I told them constantly that the only way to get something done in the House was to have a vote—