If he was on the ropes we would at least have a fighting chance. He is out of the ring. The problem has come up time and again in the House over the last number of years and it is still there but there seems to be no real plan to address it.
My colleague from Brandon--Souris mentioned the NISA program. The NISA program did provide the support that was needed but that is no longer the case. As the member indicated, it no longer works because it was used too often.
We all have heard at some point about the AIDA program which was there to help out during hard times. I heard much discussion going back and forth, but when we are not critics in that particular area, we do not always pay attention to every single thing that happens. We have so much to do each day in our own critic areas and in the different committees we attend that we can only to do the best we can in other areas. We do not always take everything in. However, the one thing everyone in the House knows is that the AIDA program was not working.
I never lived on a farm but I was around farming communities all my life. I have family members who are farmers, and they have a saying, as useless as tits on a bull. When something does not do the job it was supposed to do, that is the saying a farmer uses. That is exactly what the AIDA program was.
What we need see from the government is a dramatic change in its efforts if it wants to address the problem with agriculture in Canada, no ifs, ands or buts about it.
It is not okay to say that we are going to support numerous other industries but to heck with agriculture. As a Canadian I am not willing to have that happen and neither are the people in western Canada. We want agriculture. We want the family farm. We want those things to be part of Canadian culture but the government has been pulling the rug out from under agriculture and not giving a helping hand when farmers need it.
I want to refer to some statements made by my colleague, our agricultural critic. He said that following the 1993 election the Liberals adopted the Reform Party's policy of slashing agriculture support and shifting to an industry shaped entirely by market forces.
The European community was not willing to do that. It said it wanted to protect its agricultural industry. It knew that to maintain its farmers and their way of life it would need to give them support. The European community would not cut subsidies as has happened here. The federal Liberals did not need to cut as deeply as they did.
There is room for Canada to give more support to farmers without provoking WTO or NAFTA challenges. It can happen. Money can go into farming without it becoming a cross-border issue. It is a red herring to suggest it is not possible.
There is not a huge amount of farming in my riding. However because of the size of my riding, which is most of Manitoba's land mass, there are some farms as well as pretty much every industry one can imagine.
This summer was disappointing for farming areas in my riding. Farmers tried to diversify as the government told them to do. They invested more in cattle production and different types of farming. They expected support from the government for infrastructure programs if, for example, they had to fix their water supply. There were huge problems with the water supply to farming areas. A good number of farming areas in the west do not have water piped in to ensure a safe supply.
Projects had been started and an impression was given that PFRA would be there to support farmers and give more funding. In the past week one of my colleagues from the Alliance mentioned during question period that the money was gone in a couple of days. That is the reality. There was such a small amount of money in PFRA that it was not there to support farmers who needed the assistance.
The municipality and the province had put money toward a project to put in water lines and get them out to all the farms. Some were done and the rest were supposed to follow but there was no money. We were not talking about billions of dollars for the farmers. We were talking about a couple of million dollars but they could not get it.
Every time I see things come across my desk regarding industries in eastern Canada getting dollars I get ticked off. Industries in eastern Canada may not like hearing that, but quite frankly it is true.
A good number of people in the west no longer feel they are part of Canada. However there are those of us who will not say to heck with Canada, pack it in and become another country. We are fighting to stay part of Canada and make Canada recognize that it needs to treat all regions fairly. It must give support to all of them and not just certain areas. That is the way it must be.
I get darn annoyed when I see that happening. If the government is to get people back onside it must recognize that we must be the true nation we are and support each other from region to region in times of need. Otherwise there will always be hard feelings.
In my first campaign I was travelling around my riding and someone in one of the smaller communities referred to Ontario as the middle east. That was a classic. I have used it ever since.
I appreciate the work and the efforts of people in Ontario and throughout the country. I was raised to appreciate every aspect of the country. That is what we were taught in our schools. Quite frankly, the government needs to go back to the classroom. It must learn that to build a nation and keep it strong it must treat every region fairly. That needs to happen with agricultural producers in western Canada and throughout the country, or it will not work.