Madam Speaker, I would appreciate a two minute warning when I get that far.
This is indeed a very serious issue. I spent so much time on recommendation 14 because of the seriousness and subtlety of it and, I think, the ingenuity of the grain trade to find a way through the Canadian Alliance to undermine grain farmers, especially wheat and barley producers, to find another way in which to lower their incomes to the advantage of the grain companies. It is sad indeed, and I am saddened that some members on our side also supported that recommendation. I do not know how they got the wool pulled over their eyes, but they did.
However, the advantage is that western Canadian grain growers can now see directly how far the Canadian Alliance Party will go in terms of misrepresenting their interests and undermining their ability to have decent incomes. It is all smoke and mirrors from the Canadian Alliance Party most of the time.
The rest of the report, to a great extent, is very good. It is too bad that this one recommendation, which is against the farm community, is undermining the report as a whole.
Recommendation 3 states that Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada establish a permanent compensation fund capped at $1 billion. This would form a contingency fund to provide farmers registered for crop insurance with full compensation covering the loss of the estimated gross revenue. The annual minimum contribution would be $500 million, subject to a ceiling of $1 billion.
That is an extremely important recommendation, because we talk to farmers in western Canada, we look at the newscasts these days and we have heard for years about the problems of drought and the problems of flooding in some cases. Farmers are the staple of this country. Maybe I should give the facts, because all too often Canadians do not realize how important farmers are to the foundation of the country. It is too bad that Canadians do not want to pay them decent prices for the food they produce. The industry is in serious trouble and we should not hide those facts.
The census showed that employment in agriculture is down 26% since 1998. That is the largest decline in 35 years. We have also seen in the last three years the largest decline in practising primary producers themselves. Although farm income is up, it is up only slightly. It was up to $2.6 billion in the year 2000 and that is a fraction of the high of $11.1 billion that was in place in 1975.