Madam Speaker, I understand and agree with my hon. colleague that it is necessary to involve the provincial counterparts in order to formulate a long term sustainable agriculture policy. However, all I hear is rhetoric devoid of substance with more promises to consult. There is nothing substantive.
I mentioned the U.S. farm bill as I was wrapping up my comments earlier. It is actually the farm security act which is now before the U.S. senate. The president of the United States himself said that the U.S. will support agriculture to whatever degree is necessary. We know what that means.
That bill has provisions. It is a comprehensive program that includes safety nets, soil, water and wildlife conservation plans, value added programs and drinking water programs for rural development, research and trade subsidies. It is a comprehensive program that delivers to farmers in the United States certainty and security in a sustainable long term policy. It is a program they can rely on. It is a program which they know the government will support. However it actually causes even more problems for our farmers. The competitive disadvantage that our farmers face against the subsidies of other nations is becoming further entrenched.
For seven years the government has been stumbling along from one ad hoc crisis management program heavily weighted in bureaucracy to the next. It is incumbent upon the government to look at the American model. Look at what the result is going to be for our farmers. Give our farmers something of substance like what the American farmers have, the farm security act.
However, I have no confidence that will happen because in committee today the minister said that he did not really understand the American program.