Madam Chairman, I certainly thank the minister of agriculture for being here this evening and putting forward his points on agriculture. I also thank the member for Selkirk--Interlake for allowing us to debate what I consider and what I have always considered to be a very important issue not only in my constituency in western Canada but throughout this great country. Certainly the agriculture industry is extremely important to each and every one of us.
I do not want the minister to take this the wrong way, as I do not believe it is his fault, but it seems that ever since he has held the position of agriculture minister everything with agriculture that could go wrong seems to have gone wrong. As I said, I am not suggesting there be a change but that is perhaps one way of trying to get agriculture back on the rails.
However there have been severe problems within agriculture. First there was the ice storm and then there was a commodity crisis. We have had crisis in the tank for the last six or seven years. In 1999 in my area we had a situation of excessive rain. We had the Red River Valley flood in 1997. This year we have a drought across the entire nation. I obviously cannot blame the minister for the weather, but it seems we have never had a circumstance where we could get back to where agriculture should have been which is back in 1995 when we had excellent commodity prices and agriculture was actually in fairly good financial condition.
I have been fighting this battle for only four years and there are two areas in which I have been fighting. The first is for a long term safety net program, something that farmers can depend on that has been put into place that would allow them to see some light at the end of the tunnel, perhaps a program similar to GRIP which was taken away from producers in 1995 and has not been replaced. It was replaced with an ad hoc program called AIDA which has similarly been replaced with an ad hoc program called CFIP.
The second thing for which we have always fought and have suggested should be in place in agriculture is a disaster program. We are talking about a disaster program that could deal with droughts, with extraordinary circumstances like ice storms and excessive moisture. Unfortunately we have not had the opportunity to bring that back into place. We have not had any direction from the government and certainly the minister himself to try to put into place the necessary programs that would assist agriculture.
We are aware of the problems that now face agriculture. We know right now that in the grains and oilseeds industry in particular it stands to lose somewhere around $2 billion of its gross sales this year. That is a huge amount of money considering that commodity prices right now are as low as they have ever been. They are going up slightly right now but that is probably because there is going to be less crop harvested.
The minister said that we should not to jump to conclusions because not all of it has been harvested. The majority of my area has been harvested and I can say that my area, probably better than any, has good average crops. I will probably get a lot of phone calls and letters on that one but we do have a good average.
However I am a little oasis in a sea of total drought. Right now in western Canada we are looking at the possibility of a 14% reduction in barley production, a 20% reduction in meat and a 28% reduction in canola, which again would translate to about a $2 billion loss.
The minister talks about the programs that are in place and always seems to say that they are sufficient, that we should look at the problem and make sure the programs in place now take effect. The crop insurance program that he spoke about will in fact probably put $1.1 billion to $1.4 billion back into the farm economy, but that is an insurance program that in most cases does not cover the cost of production.
It does not cover the cost of the inputs that have to go in to make that crop in the first place, sometimes 70% or 75% depending on the area that the producer is in, but perhaps only 70% or 75% of their costs will be recovered. That still leaves a loss. People cannot go through years and years of losses without ultimately having some serious financial implications.
The minister talked about NISA. Absolutely, what a wonderful program, put in place I might add by a previous government that understood agriculture, but a program nonetheless that is there to serve the farmers. The problem is that the producers have been taking out of the NISA program for so many years that there is not a lot left in the program. Some producers who had some took it out over the last two years and now do not have any more access to funds. The minister is right, it is a wonderful program, but it has been used in a lot of cases to its maximum.
The minister talks about AIDA but not often, nor should he because there are lot of problems with AIDA and we are still suffering a lot of problems with that program.
The program that is in place now, CFIP, is not sufficient to take us to the next step. The drought we are suffering this year will take all of the funds that are in CFIP and more. Last year we had more dollars for support to agriculture than we have this year but the problems this year are much more serious than they were last year.
The minister must recognize that there has to be other financial resources put into the budget for this crop year to enable the producers to put in a crop next year.
I want to talk briefly about how Canadians see agriculture. The minister has in his possession a report by Ekos polling that was done for the department that says quite specifically that Canadians want to assist agriculture. As a matter of fact the numbers I have are that 69% of Canadians polled said that they would support more money going into agriculture. Sixty per cent said that they would provide short term financing to farmers in difficulty with no conditions placed on it. Seventy-two per cent said that government should certainly try to do something to save the family farm. Canadians themselves want the government to put into place a program that will assist Canadians staying on the farm.
We have before us a lot of serious issues. I agree with the minister that there are priorities. My belief is that agriculture is the top priority. We have a battle that we have to fight to make sure that message is given to the cabinet.
We have an issue right now with Air Canada, which we will be debating next week, where in fact dollars will be going into the airline industry. That is fair ball, but dollars must go into the agriculture industry as well. As a matter of fact, 5,000 people have lost their jobs at Air Canada. I feel for those people because there will not be a lot of opportunity for them now or perhaps in the foreseeable future.
However, just last year in the agricultural industry, not just farming but those people who are actually dependent on agriculture, somewhere in the neighbourhood of 34,600 people were displaced. That is a huge number of people but we do not hear about them because they go quietly away. Whether they be farmers who sell their farms and walk away or individuals who were involved in the direct or indirect servicing to agriculture, they go away without making much noise. We have not had a huge hue and cry about the fact that we have lost 34,600 jobs in agriculture. This is huge.
We also have about $14 billion of our economy that goes into agriculture from Canada to the United States. That is in jeopardy right now because of what happened on September 11. We must make sure that the border crossings are kept open, that the agricultural product that we produce in Canada has an opportunity to access the market in the United States. That too is the minister's responsibility. Not only is it his responsibility to keep the farmers on the farm and to put into place the proper support systems that will allow agriculture to survive, but he also has to make sure that farmers can market their produce at a fair price.
I appreciate the fact that the minister is here. I know that when he goes to the cabinet table he will fight for the same, if not a better package for agriculture as others will to go to the cabinet table to fight for Air Canada. That is all I an hope.