Mr. Chairman, I want to express my gratitude for having a chance to once again speak to the issue of the farm crisis and the agriculture industry crisis. It is such an important thing.
I hope that the one Liberal who is here listening to the speeches, and the one who just came in, the two in this big majority government, will try to take some messages back to their colleagues. They are the ones who are in a position to do something about it. We feel like we are not talking to anybody. They certainly do not respond to anything.
Mr. Chairman, I want to say to you that it is a pleasure that you asked how the elk, the deer and the bear are doing in my riding. One of the places that attracts a lot of people to my riding is the Lake Louise and Banff region. I can understand why they go there because if it is not the most beautiful spot in Canada, then it is one of the most beautiful. It is certainly worth venturing there. There are 25,000 square kilometres in my riding and those kinds of areas represent only about 20%. The other 80%, a big chunk of it, belongs to the agriculture industry.
Driving through Lake Louise and Banff and continuing eastward for approximately 450 miles we get to the eastern side of my riding. We come to a couple of small towns. Cluny is one and Gleichen and Hussar are others. What we see in this area today is absolutely devastating.
My wife and I drove to Gleichen. We drove out to the rural areas and stopped our car. I got out and took a walk into a field of grain which was stubble about six inches high with droopy heads that were not filling out. The cracks in the ground were anywhere from an inch to three inches wide and went all the way through the fields. Literally thousands, if not millions, of grasshoppers were flying in front of my face. It is a terrible thing to see. These people are absolutely devastated and do not know what to do. It is a drastic situation.
I have read comments by the members of the Liberal government who go out there. The minister responsible for the wheat board said “You have got to diversify”. We hear this comment a lot. I do not know what crop it is that they could grow that does not need moisture, that does not need water.
I have heard it said that they need to get into livestock. That whole area out there is surrounded with dugouts that are usually full of water where animals and livestock can drink, but the dugouts are dry. The ducks and geese that used to reside and nest on the dugouts are no longer there because there is no water. It is bad.
The day before yesterday I got a call from the riding and the temperature was 30 degrees Celsius. That is very unusual. It is nearly October. Yesterday it was up to about 28 degrees, the wind was blowing and the dust storms are unbelievable.
When I drove through there this summer, there were a couple of very windy days. It was like the panhandle of Oklahoma where the dust blows out of Oklahoma on its way to Texas and then when the wind changes direction it blows back from Texas to Oklahoma. The clouds were totally grey and black and we could not see the sun because of the dust that was flying around.
I went to a family reunion this summer. When we drove across the Salt Lake desert we saw more green there than we did in that portion of my riding. That shows how serious it is.
I think people understand the seriousness of it. We have to get off this kick that we have the programs in place that are working because what those people do not understand is that it is not getting into the hands of the people who are suffering, the people who are trying to make a go of things. It is not getting there.
They brought in the application forms required to be filled out for AIDA. They would need the help of 17 Philadelphia lawyers to fill out the forms. They had to hire accountants and try to find some professionals to help them fill out the documents, and when they apply they never get anything. They never get anywhere.
I do not know where all the money is going. I have not found anybody in my riding in that predicament who has received a cent.
There are solutions to all kind of situations that come up in agriculture but first we have to recognize that it is the most important industry in the country. I do not know if any of my colleagues agree with me, but it does not come across to me that the government puts the emphasis and priority on agriculture, not just in my riding in Alberta but all across the country.
Not only that, when we look at what is going on today, Mr. Chairman, those very mountains that you were talking about, where the elk and the deer roam, at this time of the year the mountains are usually solid white but they are not. They are grey and brown. There is no snow coming. That is going to hurt other industries, but I am not here to talk about them tonight. I am here to talk about the agriculture industry.
We need a cash injection. That is something we could do with. The question is, where are we going to get the money?
Let me help. I am no expert in the budgeting but the ministers who sit in the front row have departments they are responsible for. They know what their budgets are. I think they need to draw back a little and ask where their portfolios are in the list of priorities.
We know that with the tragic events on September 11 security is certainly one of them. Our defence is certainly another one. We have to take a good look at agriculture because food is pretty essential. We talk about air and water. We know what the essentials are, but food is very essential.
There has to be a cash injection. Maybe they need to wear down the erasers on their pencils when they start passing out money.
The public accounts are coming out and I find it amazing that the ministers are still keeping up to their commitments. Billions of dollars are going into different programs, most of which are nice things to do. When things are going well, I would support keeping those kind of things flowing in those areas that are nice things to do, but we are in a situation where the higher priority areas are suffering. Perhaps we could shuffle some of that money around in a different direction. Put it to an essential cause.
When we go further into the public accounts and see where they are spending the money, it gets to the point of ridiculousness. The absolute stupidity of spending millions of dollars in areas that we cannot understand what the devil they are even thinking about.
I suppose $165,000 sounds like peanuts but it is only a small example of the many projects the government spends money on. My pet one now that I am 65 years old is this wonderful committee on seniors and sexuality. Boy does that make me feel good that I now qualify as a senior and somebody is out there looking after my sex life with tax dollars. A good Liberal program. That is only one example. We could find hundreds of them in the public accounts.
Why do we not direct some of this money at places that deal with essential things? We cannot find anything more essential than food.
Along with that is another essential item. In order to produce food, we need moisture. We need to see what we can do about that. There are excellent irrigation programs. We can start working toward getting something into place in areas that are capable of handling that. I think we could improve on that. At the same time there is the cost of energy. We cannot produce food without energy. They are the two most important items; they go hand in hand.
When I farmed way back in the 1960s, I got as much for a bushel of barley then as they get today. I can guarantee the input cost for energy was not anywhere near what it is now.
Let us address the energy problem. Let us do what we can to relieve our farmers and producers of the headaches of where they are going to get the money to buy fertilizer, where they are going to get the money to pay for the power and how they are going to afford their fuel. What can we do?
I appreciate the two Liberals being here. However I am disappointed that in a crisis of this nature, faced with the essential task of feeding 31 million Canadians and keeping our commitment to the hungry in rest of the world, members are not all here demanding that we stay seated until we come up with resolutions that will solve the problem or at least head in that direction. I am afraid I will wake up tomorrow morning and ask myself what it was all worth because nothing will have changed.
I will make one last comment before I shut it down. Many do not want to diversify. They want value added goods and the wheat board is a hindrance to that possibility. Let us think about that and look at what we can do in those areas.