Madam Speaker, my colleague from St. John's West is absolutely correct.
However the problem with the agricultural and fishing industries right now is that they are adding to the unemployment rate when it should be going in the opposite direction. It should in fact be helping. The last numbers I have indicate that there were approximately 347,500 people employed in agriculture in December 2000. In December 2001 there were 312,000, which is a net loss of 34,700 jobs. If we were able to compete on a level playing field with our competitors, the Americans and the Europeans, these jobs would be back into the sector. We would be adding to the job base because we would then have other markets to get into that would allow us to develop our agricultural industry.
Let me also say that nothing was said about agriculture in the budget. Only $435.5 million was budgeted for 2000-01 and less than that for 2001-02.