Madam Chairman, members may be wondering what a fisherman from St. John's, Newfoundland is doing speaking on an agricultural debate. The first reason is that I support the resolution. As a Canadian I am well aware of the situation western farmers are going through and I am extremely supportive of helping them at this time of crisis.
The second reason is that we in Newfoundland always say, when we are ignored, which is quite often, that it is because it is only Newfoundland and because it is only fish. It seems to me that the people who count in this country, the primary producers, are the ones who are overlooked the most, and that is extremely unfortunate.
If we did not have the bread makers, the fish producers and the vegetable growers, where would we be? Let us just imagine the price we would have to pay for the basic necessities of life if we had to import them. We do not know how fortunate we are to live in a country where we can produce our own vegetables, fish, wheat and other grains that create staple foods that not only ourselves but that the world eats.
To think that in time of dire need we ignore agriculture and yet within hours of a perceived airline crisis, the government runs around trying to find money to bail out airlines that perhaps are their own worst enemy.
When I mentioned coming from a province that deals with fish, if we are talking about food supply, we also have farmers in our province who have had a major problem this year. It was not because of a lack of moisture, it was because of too much.
Last winter in Newfoundland we had a record snowfall, the most snow ever. Newfoundland is a place where in the past we have had pretty hard winters. Growing up in Newfoundland we had enjoyable winters. From the end of November until the middle of April we could ski, skidoo, skate, whatever we wanted to do to enjoy the winter scene.
Over the past 10 years or so, we thought we had moved south of Florida. A year ago we did not have to shovel the driveway or a step once during the winter. This past winter, it turned around again and we had record snowfalls, which meant that a lot of the snow did not melt until well into May. With that kind of accumulation, especially in open areas on the fields, one can imagine how wet the fields were. The farmers were extremely late getting their crops into the ground, to the extent that it affected their year's production, a reverse of what occurred in the west.
I think the total rainfall in the hon. member's area was 60-odd millimetres for the year?