Mr. Speaker, my friend from Lethbridge makes a really good point by asking this question.
I will say that although it is springtime in my home town of Brooks, Alberta and we have had average snowfalls in the area, once the wind starts howling, especially in the hilltops, the soil dries up very quickly. A lot of moisture is drawn out of the ground and the dust starts to blow. I understand there was a terrible traffic accident north of Medicine Hat as a result of all of that dust blowing around.
However what has allowed us to actually keep the dust down to a large degree is the fact that we have been able to use no till practices that involve the use of herbicides. We do not have to summerfallow the field just to avoid the erosion problems we have had in the past.
We have all seen the pictures from the thirties of great big sand dunes because of a lack of moisture and the farming practices of the time which made the land very susceptible to drifting and topsoil was lost as a result. That is not nearly the problem now that it used to be because of the different kinds of no till farming practices that involve the use of herbicides. It is very important that we still have the capacity to use those herbicides.
My friend also mentioned harmonizing with the United States. When we consider how expensive it is to go through a series of tests in the United States and have the FDA, for instance, approve all the tests that have to be done on various chemicals, which takes months if not years to do, those chemicals must go through the same process to come into Canada. That is crazy.
We should be using the tests that the Americans have. We should come to some kind of agreement on standardizing the procedures for approving not just the chemicals used in farming but all kinds of drugs as well, which is another issue. Certainly in this instance, for chemicals, why should we go through the whole process all over again which is just adding more years to the time it takes to develop the product, denying farmers the chance to use it in the meantime and adding all kinds of expense? Why should we do that when the information is already at hand?
We urge the government across the way to consider amendments that would take into account the science and the tests that have already been done in other countries to ensure that we can get these products into the hands of the users as quickly as possible.