Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar.
This is an important debate. It is one of many debates on the important subject of agriculture in which I have taken part since I was elected as the member of Parliament for Peace River in 1993. I have to say that while we are talking about the CAIS program today, it could be about the FIDP, NISA or GRIP programs; we have gone through them all in agriculture.
I have to say that yes, there are problems with this program that have to be addressed, but there is a much more fundamental problem in agriculture. It goes back to what kind of value we give our farmers, what kind of value we give our food security and our whole agriculture industry. Do we need an agriculture industry or not? That is what Canadians have to address because I see an industry slipping away from us. As slowly and surely as the sun is going to rise tomorrow, this industry is going to be gone.
I have to confess that I have a bit of a conflict. We have an over 2,000 acre farm in Alberta. My son and his wife, and my youngest daughter and her husband are farming that operation. They are having very difficult times. All four of the individuals are working off farm. That is not an uncommon situation in agriculture in this country.
When I started farming in 1968 about 17% of Canadians' disposable income went toward paying for their food supply. It was very low even at that time. There were lots of countries where 50% of disposable income went toward paying for food. Now it has dropped to something like 7%.
Canadians have to think about whether they want an agriculture industry or not. This is more than just a partisan issue. This issue is fundamental to how Canada develops because I will put it to you, Mr. Speaker, that any civilization that does not look after its basic industries and does not recognize their importance has no future.
We can look at any great civilization in the past. My wife and I spent some time in Spain this winter. Even the Moors who invaded that area in the ninth century had to have their food supply secure before they could embark on any of their great adventures. Whether it was building universities or churches, the arts or whatever it was that they wanted to accomplish, it could not take place until they had secured their food supply.
Some argue that we have a secure food supply in Canada. We produce a lot; however, we import a lot of food as well. Probably we are a net importer of food. Everything is going fine. That may be the case today, but it may not always be the case. What if we had a massive change in our currency rates as we have seen fluctuations in the past, our producers fall by the wayside and we have to start importing food into the country in a much more massive way than we do today? What if the exchange rates change again and all of a sudden food becomes very expensive? Then Canadians are going to ask us what we were thinking, why did we not look after this industry? They are going to blame us. All of us have to share in the dilemma that we have.
Let me talk about my own family history. My family came from the highlands in Scotland. They were driven out during the clearances. The clearances were when the lords owned the land and there were tenant farmers. They were part of my history. The lords decided that they could graze sheep and it would be much better than growing grain on the small parcels of land. While they may have been right, it caused massive disruption to the people living in those areas, depopulation in fact. All kinds of people came to Canada as a result of the clearances.
My family came to a little place called Vernon, Ontario, just 30 miles south of here. They had a small farm. They saw it as an opportunity, but it was not big enough. There was a lot of Canadian Shield. When the plough was put in the ground it hit rock more often than soil so they moved on. They moved out to the Peace River country in Alberta because there was an opportunity for land. They did that in 1910. The farm that we have in our family is almost 100 years old. That is the case with many people who farm today.
I saw something different from what they saw. They were looking for and saw opportunity, the potential to realize what they could develop. They were very good at it. They were very good at building their farms and exporting grain and food products all around the world, but something has changed. Canadians no longer value their farmers.
I predict as surely as I am standing here that the agricultural industry will not be able to survive the current assault on it. It will simply not be able to survive.
I have all kinds of neighbours and friends. I can give the House an example. After I was first elected in 1993, a young lady phoned me and she was crying. She asked me if I could do something because Farm Credit was taking their land away. She told me about their situation and I said that I would certainly look into it and see what I could do. It turned out that they were further behind in their payments than she had told me. I could see no hope for them. I had to phone her and tell her that I did not think they would be able to make it, that all they would be doing was paying interest.
They were good farmers. They were third generation farmers in an area of the Peace River country. These people had come from Quebec and settled in an area north of us. They were very good farmers, but they were losing their place. That young couple had to move on.
I saw that young lady last year, but I did not know who she was. She came up to me and said that she just wanted to thank me for what I had done for them. I asked what that was. She said that I had advised them that they would probably need to move on to some other industry. She said that they gave up the farm and it was like an elephant had been taken off their backs. They now have nine to five jobs. That is happening all over the country, but who will produce the food in the next generation?
I challenge the government and all parties in the House to give more thought to where we are going in this agricultural industry. On the trade side we know that subsidies worldwide are beating us up, but there are things we could do. We could reduce or take off the excise tax on farm fuel. We could take the excise tax off fertilizer. We could give tax breaks to farmers who are buying equipment. Those are things that are within our control.
We could be much more aggressive on the trade front internationally and talk to trade blocs like the European Union. We must tell them that their policies are driving our farmers out of business, and that if they continue to do that, we will have to take action against some of their products. We have been too timid on that front. It is hurting us a lot.
Our farmers can produce with anybody in the world on the basis of production and competitiveness, but they cannot compete with the treasury of the European Union with 500 million people to support it, and they cannot compete with the treasury of the United States. We simply have to lend them a hand. They cannot make those arguments for themselves. They expect their government to do it and the government has been far too timid.
It is time to step up to the plate. Otherwise we will lose a very important part that will affect our ability to grow as a country and develop, because I do not think any great civilization can exist if it does not have security of its own food supply. That is where we are going today.