Mr. Speaker, I have listened to the various members speak on the bill, some of them extremely familiar with the farming sector, and some not so much, but who do have a concern for the principle of providing funds to those who need funds in a way that will enable them to continue to work and make a living and to hold on, in a lot of cases, to the property they own.
In my own case I cannot claim to be familiar with the farming area to any great extent, although certainly in my district we do have farms, despite what people think about the province of Newfoundland. A lot of people think it is a rock because it is referred to as The Rock, but it is a very big island, as we all know, and there are many very fertile areas on that island where we have large farming operations.
However, what we are talking about here is not unlike an industry with which I am much more familiar, and that is the fishing industry.
When we talk about agencies, whether it be the Farm Credit Corporation or whether we call it Farm Credit Canada or whatever, what difference does it make as long they do the job that the farmers want it to do? If it will be costly to start implementing changes, although I cannot see why it really would be, then we certainly should look at why the name should be changed. Other than that, the bill itself basically is one that is supported by farmers. The amendments would not be, certainly not Amendments Nos. 1 and 2.
I mentioned the fishing industry. There are commonalities. Within the fishery we also have agencies that provide assistance directly to the people in the fishing industry. If they were not there, the people who participate in the fishing industry would have no one to turn to, especially the little fellow, as we say, the person who is operating on his own, who is not backed by a major company, who is not owned by a company or corporation, who is trying to operate his family fishing business the same way as a farmer would operate a family farm, quite often when the going is tough, whether it is a poor fishing season or a poor farming season.
If we did not have such agencies it would be the regular bank we would have to turn to. Banks are great. If we have money in the bank and are worth a few bucks we have absolutely no trouble getting money from a regular chartered bank. However if we have no money in the bank and times are tough, try getting money from the bank then. A lot of farmers and a lot of fisherpersons are really left in a bind.
Unless we have assistance groups such as credit corporations dealing with the various sectors, many of the people who are trying to operate within these sectors, in most cases successfully, find the going very tough in times of need.
In western Canada in particular, unless we have a change in the weather, this year could be an extremely tough year for farmers. Mother Nature is a very rough person to try to fight, and as many of us have learned, whether we are farmers or operate on the ocean, it is a battle we cannot win. As we debate legislation that is so important to them, they are undoubtedly wondering if the protective clauses will be there to protect them if they need assistance from such agencies during the fall.
As we proceed through this legislation, we should try to protect those who most need the protection. Those who need the protection most generally are the family farm owners, the small boat fishermen, the family enterprises. They do not have the support of the major corporations. They are not owned and manipulated by the big corporations.
When we hear the words family farm and we hear people talking about the difficulties some farmers and some families go through, we all think of the old westerns that we watched when we were growing up. They are almost gone from the screen. It is very difficult to see a good John Wayne movie or any other movie. It may be because of the violence. If those movies caused violence, we would all be pretty violent people, I would say, looking around here. We ran around with guns strapped to our hips when we were young and playing cowboys. However, many of these old shows talked about the family farm, with the bank holding the mortgage and calling in the mortgage, whereby the family would lose the farm except for the hero.
Perhaps in this scenario here the hero is actually the Farm Credit Corporation or Farm Credit Canada or whatever we want to call it. It is agencies such as this that the owner of the farm now has to depend on to make sure that he is not just swallowed up in the process, that when he is paying his bills there is not a problem, and that when he runs into difficult times, as we have seen in the last couple of years and as we may looking at this year, he needs a crutch to lean on. It is up to government to ensure that the crutch is there and that the family farm and farms generally will exist beyond the period of drought, beyond the period of fires and beyond the period of rough agricultural times. One of the things we have to remember is that it is the farmers and the fishermen of the country who provide the sustenance needed to keep the country going.
We hear people talk about subsidies. What is the alternative to farming and fishing in this country, the provision of the very food we need to keep the country going? We must make sure these people have every break they can get in order to carry on such worthwhile industries, because they are such worthwhile contributors to the country themselves.
We support the bill. We cannot support Amendments Nos. 1 and 2 at this stage because of the effects they might have on the smaller operations within the farming system.