Mr. Speaker, I see the effects of this process in my own riding. When I started in Parliament in 1993, one of the small communities I represented had a post office, a bank, the grain elevator and a small school. The community was vibrant, alive, vigorous and thriving. Through the last few years, particularly last year, this small community has lost its elevators, its bank and the school has shut down. It is literally a ghost town.
Where did the people who lived in this little community supporting the rural area go? Some of them have left and gone to the city. They were doing double duty in their jobs at that point of time; some driving the school bus, some welding for the communities around and some went into the oil industry. However, their homes are sitting there empty. The only people still there are the senior citizens who have some friends who visit the seniors' lodge.
I had an opportunity to reflect on this when one of the owners of a large farm in the area went to Brazil. He has sold his farm, abandoned our country and has gone to Brazil where he has fresh opportunities. The saddest part of all this is that we will end up without the family farm, as we have lost so many of our fishers from that industry. We will end up with large industrial farms that really provide very little to the local communities. The other sad part is that the rural farm lives, which have undergone huge changes, equipment changes, and which are able to survive with normal economic circumstances, will die unless we look after them, prepare them well and make certain that international issues are dealt with to their benefit.