Mr. Speaker, tonight we are debating on an emergency basis the drought situation in western Canada, Saskatchewan and Alberta in particular.
However, I would like to point out that it is not only in western Canada where we have a drought. In four out of the last six years there has been extremely dry conditions in the Annapolis Valley, Nova Scotia. Southern Ontario also has a drought. Never has there been any special help for these farmers stricken by this drought. This year was a little more dramatic I suppose in the sense that there were gigantic acreages involved, due to the size of Alberta and Saskatchewan.
However the evidence is clear. The government has never taken drought as a serious issue that needs special measures. That was demonstrated again this year with the inaction of the Liberal government. The available $600 million was for agriculture policy framework bridge funding for all farmers across the country. That has nothing to do with the drought. Farmers need that program money to offset the low prices they were receiving due to foreign subsidies which were depressing the prices because of overproduction in those competing countries. That was exactly what we needed for the drought, but it did not come.
This is an all Canada thing, not just simply western Canada.
If we look at the Statistics Canada statistics for the next year, New Brunswick is expected to be down 19%, Quebec 31%, Ontario 31%, Manitoba 28% and Saskatchewan 73% in realized net income. This drop in realized net income will not be compensated in any way by the federal government, except for the limited agriculture policy framework money it is putting forward.
I distinctly remember the Prime Minister announcing that it would be $5.2 billion over six years. If anybody can divide and come out with $1.1 billion, which is what we are currently getting in a safety net program, then I believe that there will be more money under the agriculture policy framework. However there will be less money under the agriculture policy framework for safety nets than there is now.
Let us talk about what is happening in western Canada in regard to agriculture. Right now warrants of committal are being prepared to send wheat and barley farmers to jail. Some say, “That cannot be true. Why would any government send a farmer to jail?”
The fact is, these farmers wanted to sell their own wheat and barley and when they did it, they were arrested and charged for failing to obtain an export permit from the Canadian Wheat Board. Farmers in the rest of the country can get an export permit for nothing. They just go in and ask for it. They get it and they export at no extra cost. Farmers in the designated region of Saskatchewan, Alberta and Manitoba have to sell that wheat to the Canadian Wheat Board, buy it back and then export it. That makes it uneconomical. As a result, western farmers cannot export outside the country. In fact they cannot even take a load of wheat, haul it from Manitoba into Ontario and sell it without the Wheat Board getting a piece of the action.
How do farms that have over $1 million in assets, where the families are trying to make a living, do it when the right to market their own crops to their own best advantage is taken away from them? They are told by the Liberal government that they have to believe in the big socialist mentality that everybody will get an average income and there will be nobody who will do better because of their abilities to do a better job of marketing.
New Brunswick is the province with the greatest value added in this whole country of all the produce that it makes. Why do we not have that in western Canada? Partially because of the socialist attitude that wheat and barley cannot be marketed except through the Canadian Wheat Board.
There has been a really big push in Ontario, and a lot of credit to the people in Ontario. They have decided that the Ontario Wheat Marketing Board should not be a monopoly. Why? Because they want to have value added. They know that they cannot just ship bulk crops out and make money at it.
We see that happening across the country, but our western Canadian farmers still suffer under the yoke of a monopoly that tells them they cannot use their own initiative to market their wheat and barley.
Is there some big conspiracy to keep western farmers down? I would not say that. However, when we look at the facts, it is mighty sad. I mentioned the 14 farmers from Alberta. They have to pay their fines by November 1. They are the farmers for justice who are protesting an unjust system which says they cannot market the fruits of their own labour. They took the chance putting those seeds in the ground. They took the chance that the rains would or would not come. With what did they end up? A government that told them they could not market their own wheat and barley. Not only that, if they did not do it the way they were told, they would be put in jail.
On November 1 these 14 farmers will refuse to pay those fines. It will be a sad day when the Liberal Government of Canada puts them in jail for trying to market their own wheat and barley.
The government is failing to do these kinds of things. We look at many of the other issues about which my leader from Calgary spoke. We look at the inaction of the heritage minister in regard to the tuberculosis problem in the Riding Mountain National Park. That has the potential to affect all livestock exports from Canada. It adds costs right now to the province of Manitoba, but it affects the credibility and status of all beef exported from Canada.
What has the heritage minister done? She talked about a scientific study. I found out this summer that they put collars around elk to see where they would go. Well, wherever they go, they will be spreading the TB. Why is the government not doing something about it?
The minister talked tonight about the minor use of pesticides. I had representatives of CropLife Canada in the other day. They said that they wanted me, my party and the other opposition parties to get into the House of Commons and tell government members that they were not making any progress on speeding up the authorization of the use of minor use pesticides. I told the association that they had appropriated money for that purpose. They said that the Liberals were spending the money, but nothing was happening quickly for the use of minor use pesticides.
Tonight we heard two great speeches by members from the Liberal side who talked about all the great things. As far as the government is concerned and as far as Canadians who are watching this on TV, those farmers must be rolling in cash. There are billions of dollars. We hear the government talk about all these programs. The fact of the matter is Statistics Canada has come out with statistics on the drop in incomes, particularly grain and oilseeds, and the negative margin incomes for farms.
Those negative incomes translate directly into farm families having trouble sending their children to school with the right books or buying clothes for them. We are talking about the direct impacts on farm families. We are not having some hypothetical argument in the House of Commons about too money much flowing around. That is the image the government would like to give.
This safety net money is insufficient for the hurt that is being caused, especially to the grain and oilseed farmers. The government plainly does not care.