Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to take part in today's debate and to indicate at the outset that the New Democratic Party will be voting in support of the resolution put forward.
That is not to say we do not recognize that there is a good deal of double talk going on here today. One of the earlier speakers, in questioning the member for Toronto—Danforth, said that we have not done a good enough job of explaining agriculture to Canadians.
While I would not disagree with that, I point out that one of the reasons that perhaps we have not done a good enough job is because some political parties in the House are johnny-come-latelies to the crisis. I am speaking specifically about the Canadian Alliance, formerly the Reform Party, that introduced the motion today. That party has come to prominence in the country based on a cheap food policy. There are many examples over past years.
The one and only leader of the Reform Party said in Truro, Nova Scotia in the early 1990s that western provinces could not afford all the farmers they had. We have quotes on the record that I alluded to in the past, indicating that Elwin Hermanson, who was the agriculture critic in the House between 1993 and 1997 for the then Reform Party, said that he would not disagree with any of the cuts that were made in agriculture following the arrival of the Liberal Party to power in 1993.
The 1997 election platform of the then Reform Party indicated that it would cut support to agriculture by several hundred million dollars. Less than a week ago there were a number of rallies around the country. The Leader of the Opposition, the person who introduced the motion today, spoke at the rally in Ottawa that a number of us attended. Anyone would have had the impression, as would any one of the 5,000 in attendance, that he was going to rush right back to the House of Commons and demand additional funds for agriculture. He rushed back to the House but he dealt with immigration and not the crisis on the farm.
While I share the sentiments of the member for Brandon—Souris that we should not play politics with this issue, at the same time history teaches us some lessons. It is important to point those out from time to time.
When the history of the problem of agriculture in Canada is written, people will recognize and realize that 1993 was a pivotal year in the process. Not only was it the election of the Liberal government and its preoccupation with eliminating the deficit as quickly as possible, but that year coincided with the conclusion of the lengthy Uruguay and GATT round at which time agriculture and support payments for agriculture, both domestic and external, were dealt with for the very first time in an international setting.
I believe that the government, with its preoccupation on eliminating the deficit, hid behind the GATT resolutions and recommendations that everyone should cut subsidies or support payments by 20% over five years.
We all know, and it is a matter of public record, Canada went much further than 20%. It eliminated it by some 60% over that period of time.
At the same time it is a matter of public record as well that following the 1993 election two parties lost their voices in the House. The former Progressive Conservative government and the New Democratic Party did not have official representation between 1993 and 1997. The government opposite was listening to the fact that the Reform Party was not being critical at all of the cuts that were coming in agriculture. It went at it in a very ruthless way. That was the period of time in which the Crow benefit was lost in western Canada. That was a huge amount of money out of farmers' pockets, more than $600 million per year across the three prairie provinces.
The province of Saskatchewan, as was pointed out by the member for Souris—Moose Mountain, has most of the arable land. It is over $300 million.
The fact of the matter is, the minister of agriculture would have all of us believe that history began in 1997 when he started to put more money back into agriculture. My colleague from Brandon—Souris was absolutely correct when he said there was far more money in agriculture support payments for Canadian farmers prior to 1993. That first mandate of the Liberal government took a lot of money out of agriculture, the Crow benefit being one of them, and it enormously jacked up the costs to farmers. We are still seeing the downside of all of that.
Another point the minister of agriculture raised, and he talked about it again today, was this 60:40 split. He correctly pointed out that there was a joint program for agriculture between the provinces and the federal government. I do not believe it was part of the confederation bargain that agriculture would be split in any kind of a 60:40 arrangement.
To go back about 15 years ago to 1986, I remember very well that the premier of Saskatchewan, Grant Devine, was demanding a billion dollars to help grain and oilseed farmers. This was in the midst of a provincial election campaign in Saskatchewan. I recall as well that the billion dollars was forthcoming from the then Conservative government of Brian Mulroney with absolutely no 40% arrangement having been made by Saskatchewan to pay for that. This is relatively recent history which we are dealing with.
Another point that the minister of agriculture referred to was the AIDA program, which is now morphed into the Canadian farm income program. My recollection goes back to 1998 when the minister of agriculture spoke at the United Grain Growers convention in Regina. It was in the fall of 1998, a few weeks before the AIDA program was announced in December of that year. The minister was very clear in his comments that morning that the real problem in agriculture was in the provinces of Manitoba and Saskatchewan, and by golly he was going to do something about it. The something became the AIDA program.
Despite the numbers the minister has revealed here today, the fact of the matter is, and the statistics bear it out, that the agricultural income disaster assistance plan has worked less well in the provinces of Saskatchewan and Manitoba than in any of the other provinces. This has to do with the rules and regulations and the fact that it looks at previous years to sort out their income for this year.
With farming, especially in the grains and oilseeds which is predominantly in western Canada, having been at such a flat plateau over the last number of years, there were no dips. With few exceptions, many farmers have not qualified for the AIDA program, nor do I predict will they be able to qualify in those two provinces of Saskatchewan and Manitoba for the CFIP.
That leads me to comment on the fact that now we are getting signals from the Ministry of Agriculture and Agri-Food saying that it will not be putting money into the CFIP plan in the province of Saskatchewan unless that province puts up its 40% of the money for CFIP. I think that is a very wrong way to go.
I think the government of Saskatchewan has looked at agriculture support plans in the country and has concluded—and I agree very much with the member for Souris—Moose Mountain on this point—that this program and its predecessor, the AIDA program, simply do not work for Saskatchewan farmers. What the government of Saskatchewan is saying is that it will put the equivalent money into agriculture to help farmers in its own province, but it does not want to contribute specifically to this program because it has demonstrably failed over the last number of years. I do not think there should be any demur on the part of the Government of Canada in regard to that approach.
As long as the government of Saskatchewan can demonstrate clearly that it is putting in new and equivalent money but is not putting it into a flawed program that does not work for its farmers, surely that should not be a reason to tell Saskatchewan that if it is not going to comply, it will not get its share of this $500 million that was announced a couple of weeks ago.
Just as an aside on the $500 million, it was very revealing to me to hear the member for Toronto—Danforth say essentially how shocked and appalled he was, although those were not his exact words, that it was only $500 million, not $900 million, when the announcement was made two or three weeks ago. Yet I well remember every one of those members standing up to vigorously applaud the minister of agriculture when he said that he had just come from meeting with the Canadian Federation of Agriculture and that the government had put in $500 million.
I note again the duplicity in all of this and the theatrics that go on around here, with the member for Toronto—Danforth now saying how disappointed he is that there was not more money, although doubtless he was one of the people who was up and applauding the $500 million. There were certainly a number of others who did so at that time.
After 1997, when the New Democrats and the Progressive Conservatives were once again represented in the House in sufficient numbers, the early arguments we heard when we started talking about the need for federal assistance for agriculture were that our pockets were not as deep as those of Washington or Brussels. Those were the arguments at the time and to some extent they were correct, because the deficit had not yet been eliminated but the government was bent in that direction.
Now that argument, I submit, no longer applies. The budget has been balanced. There is a healthy surplus of some $21 billion this year, I think, and for the next four years thereafter it rolls out to about $100 billion, so there is no argument that our pockets are not as deep as those of Washington and Brussels or that we cannot compete with them. The fact of the matter is that the government can compete. The reality is that it chooses not to do so.
It was not lost on farmers when just before Christmas an announcement was rolled out by the government about a $1.7 billion loan guarantee for Bombardier. There was no hint of any problem whatsoever in that aerospace industry. There is $1.7 billion in loan guarantees for Bombardier while farmers are fighting for any financial scrap they can get in their area.
If we do not put money into agriculture, I do not think there is any question that we are going to risk losing the food security we all want to retain. I think the Europeans understand that. They have survived two famines over the past century and that is why they support their farmers. They have simply determined that they are not going to accept a third famine and they are prepared to put some money into farming to ensure that it does not happen.
The Americans have responded and are saying that they will not put their farmers at a disadvantage in regard to what is happening in Europe. The numbers have been bandied about this morning; they have put a lot of money into supporting their farmers in recent years. We in Canada have not done so and I think that if we do not, we risk losing our security over food and agriculture.
In his remarks, the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food, in answer to some questions, I think, talked about the need for transition and about farms perhaps continuing to get larger, like they have over the last many decades. That is all well and good, but if we are to have some transition programs, we are talking about an aging farm population. The average age of farmers in Saskatchewan is 58 and I suspect it does not differ very much in that province from many other provinces. If the government is planning to do that, it will have to look at putting some transition programs in place to help ease the adjustment of farmers who will be leaving the farm and going on to other types of work.
The member for Toronto—Danforth talked about the disparity between producers and the food business, the retail sector. He is absolutely right. I think the National Farmers Union has indicated that for the last 30 years food production across Canada has basically held steady at something less than $5 billion, while the retail sector has increased sixfold to $30 billion or $31 billion.
The point is well made, but we also now have people like Larry Solomon, who was recently quoted in the paper as saying that we cannot afford to continue to subsidize farmers and that if only we had small farms around big cities all our problems would be over. It would be interesting for Mr. Solomon to visit Saskatchewan and see the reality of 47% of the arable land and figure out how everybody would be able to cluster around some large cities.
The point I am trying to make is that we really do not have an oversupply in the country as long as we have people around the world who cannot feed themselves. What we have is a difficulty in getting the food to the people who need it most. It would be short term pain if we were to reduce our food supply and not be able to get back into that business.
I will conclude my remarks with that point and just emphasize again that with a $100 billion surplus, there is a need to put some of that money into farming. I have never been persuaded that the $900 million was enough. There were a lot of farmers in western Canada saying not to go down that road, that they needed more than that. It is probably important and it is probably high time that provincial ministers of agriculture, farmers and, to pick up on the point from the member for Toronto—Danforth, consumers as well try to have some kind of a discussion and debate about the future of agriculture in the country and where it is that we think we are going.
Rather than the top down approach, where lobbies happen, a rally happens and the government comes out with a dollar amount, I think we should turn the process on its head. Let us have some discussion with the farm community, consumers and the agriculture ministers across the country. Let us deal with it in that way to see if we can finally come up with a program that works for farmers.
It may be that we need a long term safety net program where, on one occasion in one year, there will be a certain group of farmers accessing the money, perhaps in southeast Saskatchewan or southwestern Manitoba, for example, because of the flooding there which wreaked havoc. That might be for this year, and then next year there would be another. There will always be uneven results in farming. In those happy years where there are not, it may very well be that we could set aside some money and have a larger pool on which to draw in future years.
That is the position of the New Democratic Party and I appreciate the opportunity to speak about it this afternoon.
