Madam Speaker, I know that there is a big push within our agriculture department to start looking at genetically modified crops. Maybe we could discuss genetically modified members of Parliament as perhaps a way of putting a little bit of passion into this.
I thank the member for mentioning passion. We are talking about lives here. We are literally talking in some cases about life and death, but we are talking about a way of life. We have three and four generation farms that are going under.
When I sit in at agriculture hearings and talk to the CAIS staff and, in fact, when I talk to any of the staff from agriculture, I have a sense that everything is okay in Ottawa. I get the feeling that among our farmers who live on Parliament Hill, or among our cash croppers in the Wellington Building things are okay. Even where the minister has the main agriculture office on Carling Avenue, among all the dairy producers who live there, things are okay. We have a few problems and we are tinkering.
However, it is a completely different reality in the communities. Northern Ontario has the same problem as does western Canada. Our families are going under and they are crying out. Some of them do not want to even talk about it any more. They are so filled with despair.
In fact, I phoned one of my ranchers at home, someone I talk with all the time, to get a sense of what is happening now. I said that I was going into a debate. His wife said to me that he is not going to phone back. He is tired of all this. This gentleman is a third generation rancher. She said that he is not going to phone me back because nothing ever changes. It has all been said again and again.
I feel like a fool phoning and saying, “Hey, what's new with the farmers going under?” I know the situation was the same three months ago. It was the same six months ago. It was the same a year ago. We knew what the problem was and nothing has been done to fix it.
Therefore, could there be a little bit of passion about this? We need passion or we should just be saying that the government will cut the farmers off and forget rural Canada all together.