Mr. Speaker, we are here tonight to discuss in an emergency debate the disaster that has happened on the Prairies and what is going on in agriculture across the country. I think we need to take a very serious look at that. That is why it is an emergency debate. We asked for this emergency debate last spring. If it had happened last spring, we would actually have been talking about something that would have made a lot more sense in being able to deal then with the crisis that came along, which we could see was going to happen, rather than at this time. It is not too late but it is very late for some. Some have had a devastating summer. Some are in the situation where they have lost everything already.
We have seen this drought on the Prairies. I farm and am very close to the area that is most stricken with the drought. Some of the crops that came up were so pitiful that they were not harvestable. Some of the crops that came up were not harvestable because they were victimized by not only a lack of water or moisture to grow but because of the grasshoppers that ate up everything that did grow.
Actually, now we have another problem. It has started to rain in the last month. Some of the crops in the marginal areas that did get a little bit of rain are now being damaged because of rain and frost. It is an absolute devastation, beyond I think what the people in the House, from what I have heard here, understand. When one talks to some of these farmers, one gets a better picture of what really is happening. We need to do that. We need to understand that so we can help them most effectively.
People in agriculture learn to live with some hardships. It is sort of the way of life. Back in the twenties, 80% of population in Canada lived on farms and raised their families on farms. Now the population has shifted so dramatically that 82% of the population in Canada actually lives in large urban centres and the number of primary farmers is below 3%. Farmers learn to adapt. That is why they have survived to this point. They have lived through droughts before and through grasshoppers, low rainfall and situations where they could not harvest.
The biggest challenge that they face is not any of these. The biggest challenge they face is a government that does not understand, is unknowing and uncaring about what their situations are and has actually challenged them to the degree that they do not even believe that the government is there to support their industry at all. It is absolutely amazing.
This summer when I was in Leeds County and last week when I was in Lindsay, Ontario, I had an opportunity to talk to the people there who understood exactly what was going on. They were the first to rise up, send some of their hay to western Canada and take part in this Hay West project. The Hay West project was a wonderful thing in the sense that it was about farmers helping farmers. They were the first to rally to the cause. They understood the plight of the western farmer, what drought was and what the hardships of agriculture meant to them. They were prepared to give of their own so that others could be helped out in this crisis.
The frustration was that they could not get the product that they were willing to give out of their own livelihoods to the people who really needed it. It was very late in the game when the government finally decided almost out of embarrassment that it would fork over a few measly dollars, I think it was $3.8 million, to send 377 loads of hay to western Canada, which was very much appreciated. The frustrating thing is that this needs to be levered into action by a government that has the dollars to be able to really deal with the problem. The amount of hay on those trains is enough to be goodwill and is very much appreciated, but it is certainly not enough to address the problem in western Canada.
It is absolutely shameful to see the results of that, because we have a government that had the ability this summer to upset farmers on both ends of the country for different reasons, some farmers because they saw the need, wanted to help and had a government that was not willing to support them, and others who needed the help and saw a government that was not interested in stepping up to the plate. We can see that the family farm is threatened from one end of the country to other, but when we look at family farms in Canada we understand a lot better just how important they are.
They provide the highest quality food, the safest products and the cheapest food not only in the country, but in the world. It has been said that never before in the history of mankind have so few raised so much for so little. That is what describes very vividly the picture we see of agriculture and farmers in Canada today.
I was in Wainwright when the first load of hay came in. One had to be there to see the excitement on the faces of the farmers when they understood that somebody was finally there and able to help them. What did they get? They had a Prime Minister who wanted a photo op in eastern Canada. He did not have the nerve to come to western Canada to meet the trains, where he could have seen the same faces I did and understood the plight of those agriculture people. A photo op in eastern Canada was a little bit different and very unappreciated by the people who really needed the help.
I have to sit back and ask myself why a government would do that. Why would a government not understand the plight of agriculture? Maybe it just does not understand. Maybe that is the situation is here. Maybe when the cabinet members got together, they just did not understand.
I sent them a letter inviting them to come to Yellowhead. I said that I would take them around personally to a number of farmers to give them an idea of the plight of the western farmer and to show them how intense the problem really was. I got one phone call. The guy said that he was too busy to come. I had four or five letters. Two of them said that I should not worry about them because they understood the problem. I kind of doubt that. A few letters had lists of things the government was doing for the farmers, basically photo op situations. A few others were signed by staffers saying that their ministers were too busy to show up. That was the kind of reply I got from cabinet members with regard to my invitation.
It is absolutely frustrating when I see a government fail because it is not interested. Government members do not care. They have no plan and there is absolutely no leadership.
I then ask myself why they would do that. We have a government that does the math. It is not very good at helping farmers, but it is very good at math. It understands that 3% is not enough to help. What it fails to understand is that not helping agriculture will devastate our country because it is one of the economic drivers that is absolutely fundamental to the sovereignty of a nation. When a country fails to feed itself, then we have a major problem that drives right to the heart of the sovereignty of a nation.
The United States is one of the most free enterprise countries in the world and we can see what it has done. It has added $280 billion over the next 10 years to support their agricultural industry. We have $5.2 billion. When we compare that to the Americans, their support for their farmers is over 500 times more than ours. That is absolutely embarrassing. It shows us that the government has failed to understand what Europe learned a long time ago. When we go hungry as a nation, we will say to ourselves, “never again”. I would hate to see that happen in Canada. I would hate to see what this government's action will accomplish.
We need to look at cash injections to deal with the problems. We have to look at a five year extension to the tax deferral for ranchers. We have to look at rethinking the safety net programs to make them more versatile so they can deal with some of the problems we have seen in the intense drought area and there has to be flexibility within the program to do that.
We have to look at the dual marketing. We have heard others say that the idea of throwing farmers in jail is not the way to go. We have to understand what their plight is about and what is important for them to stay in their livelihood. We need a lot of these things and more.
It is frustrating for me to see a government that does not understand agriculture in the crisis as we have today. The proof of that is every time I see one of my Liberal colleagues stand up and try to explain to the House all the things the Liberals have done. That proves to me that they have no clue what they are talking about.