Mr. Speaker, I appreciate being able to speak to the House on this issue.
Although Montreal, Quebec is a long way from my riding of Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, the issue is one which is very close to my heart for a number of reasons. First, it is about farmers and how they continue to be left behind, ignored and shoved aside by the Liberal government. Second, it is just another example of how the government is thumbing its nose at rural Canada.
There are a number of facts that tell the big picture in this case. That picture is one of men, women and children who are displaced from the land they and their families called home for generations. More than 3,100 farm families, or 10,000 to 12,000 people, were affected by this expropriation. Many farmers over the age of 50 could not find a new job. In one community 80 homes were destroyed and many businesses disappeared. The Department of Transport effectively wiped out the economic life of 10 villages.
It was the largest displacement of people since the deportation of the Acadians. When the land was expropriated, many people fell into depression and suicide was common. This is not just about land. It is about these people, the people who live there and make their living off of it. It is about Canadian farmers who put the food on our tables. If the Liberal government understood that and saw the human side of the situation instead of just the financial side, it would give the land back.
To add insult to injury, people felt they were cheated by the government because it paid them $210 per acre in 1969. That may have sounded like a reasonable figure at the time, but if one looks at 1970, the very next year, the same government paid $2,000 an acre to expropriate land for the airport it planned to build in Pickering.
This land was expropriated 35 years ago. This land still has agricultural value and is part of the cultural identity of the region.
There was no good reason for expropriating the land in the first place and now there is no good reason for the government not to sell it to those who wish to buy it back. This airport is closed to passenger traffic and it is highly unlikely that the situation will change in the foreseeable future.