Mr. Speaker, Canada's agricultural cooperatives need government support. They are calling for measures to assist with their capitalization.
These cooperatives play an essential role in the development of the rural economy. At the present time, the constraints on their capitalization limits their strategic investments and makes them very vulnerable to the competition.
In a context of market globalization and emerging agri-food competition, the cooperatives need our support for their efforts.
The entire agricultural and agri-food sector supports the cooperatives. The Quebec Liberal caucus calls upon the Minister of Finance to include the measures requested by Canada's cooperatives in his next budget.
I believe that our government should take its cue from the measures that Quebec has adopted to help with the capitalization of the cooperatives.