Madam Speaker, I certainly do not remember the first grant for rural development going to my riding. What the hon. member may be referring to is the CARCI program which is a $9.3 million national program. It assists groups and organizations in rural parts of the country in a number of endeavours, particularly those communities that are having challenges in the agricultural industry, and gives them an opportunity to reach out.
The member talked about some of the ways of reaching out to try to diversify their economies, to build beyond just the producing side and to get into the value added side. I know from seeing the approvals that there have been dozens of them in ridings of Alliance members as well as in other ridings. That is not the issue. We do not dole it out according to who happens to hold the riding. We dole out according to the need that may be in a particular riding.
The hon. member talked about business start-ups. I wonder if the hon. member is aware that 60% of new small business start-ups occur in rural areas. There is a misconception that rural Canadians are not entrepreneurial in their approach. The exact opposite is true and the figures show very clearly that is the case.
I know the hon. member is a committed to the needs of his riding and committed to the agricultural industry in the country, as are the members on this side of the House. Unless I am mistaken, today there is a federal-provincial meeting among all 10 provinces and the federal minister. They will be working on the issue of agriculture.They signed an agreement almost a year ago in Whitehorse, Yukon.
They are working toward restructuring the way we do agricultural business in the country and that is what we need to do. We need to not simply say that what has happened in the past is good enough and that it is simply working the way that we want it to. We need to bring together the provinces and producers and that is what we are doing.
There is a very extensive consultation process taking place right now bringing producers from across the country together to talk about finding the ways to move forward in the 21st century when it comes to agriculture. Those are the kinds of things we are doing as a government. Quite frankly, from my perspective, there are things that I do not think we should do just simply as a government. There are things that we ought to do as parliamentarians.
Many members who sit on the opposition benches come from the western Canada and they have a valuable contribution to make. They have a valuable perspective to put forward. When it comes to rural development and sustainability, we need to work collectively as parliamentarians to ensure the well-being of rural Canada and rural Canadians is foremost in our minds and foremost in the actions that we suggest and undertake.