Mr. Speaker, farmers and livestock producers and all those whose livelihoods rely on agriculture are anxiously counting the days until March 7 when they hope the U.S. border will open to cattle under 30 months of age from Canada.
After three years of drought and a beef ban that lasted almost two years, reopening the border is only a small step in solving this economic crisis. We might have been able to weather the BSE cases better if we had not been quite so dependent on the U.S. to buy and process our beef.
It is time to be proactive, to rebuild our markets and secure new markets for new products. The best way to accomplish this is to increase our slaughter capacity. We need more processing plants and we need them now.
The federal government has a role to play. There are groups with site plans and marketing plans for new slaughterhouses, but they cannot get the government's attention or help. People are losing their farms, homes and businesses. We need a new deal for rural Canada, and the upcoming budget is a good place to start.