Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to stand in the House today to address this issue and to support the motion to drop the deposit for the CAIS program.
The reason I find this such a fascinating topic of discussion is because it is my life. I farmed for 30 years before I came to this House. I can sense the frustration that farmers are going through.
We need to remember that it is not only the farmers. It is the ranchers. It is the agricultural industry. It is the supply industries that provide all the input to those producers who are maybe not feeling the pinch yet, but who certainly will very soon if we do not address what we need to recognize as very dire circumstances.
My riding of Macleod is very representative of the broad scope of agriculture in this country. We have some of the largest cow-calf ranches in my riding of Macleod. Certainly they have felt the impact of BSE. We certainly hope to hear encouraging words today from Mr. Johanns who is the new agriculture secretary in Washington. Let us hope that continues and that we actually do see that border open on March 7.
The grains and oilseeds industry is very large in my riding and that was my background. I was a grains and oilseeds producer for 30 years. I sensed the problems even back then.
We are always accused of bouncing from pillar to post and from crisis to crisis in agriculture. That is probably because we have not addressed the long term issue of how we deal with this. I got very involved earlier on in trying to make a difference, trying to influence policies that could improve the situation for not only primary agriculture, but value added agriculture.
I fought long and hard through many debates at committee tables. I have had the privilege of actually sitting on both sides of committee tables now. I have the honour of knowing what questions to ask because I have had them asked of me. I was very much involved, and I am almost scared to admit this, in the formation of the CAIS program, but I must admit that I was dragged along kicking and screaming.
What we are talking about here today are the exact issues that I and my colleagues that sat on the national safety nets advisory committee warned the government about. We said that it should not require a deposit because it would not work.
We had a NISA program that was working but the former minister of agriculture decided that there was too much money in that account. That was always brought back and thrown in our faces when we said that there was an issue with agriculture. That money was capital tied up.
What do we have today in this program if we do not have capital tied up? We have over $600 million in deposits. That is the working capital of farmers. That is money they cannot use to buy inputs for this spring and money they cannot use to make their payments. It is critical that we change that.
By the time the end of March comes around it looks like we will be at $1 billion. Is that good use of farmers' money to be tied up in a bank account somewhere else when they have to go back and borrow more money, that is if they can, to be able to put a new crop in for this year?
There are some tremendous flaws, which is why I am speaking out loud and clear that we need to remove this deposit part of the CAIS program.
The other part of our motion that I have not heard as much talk about today is following through on the commitments the government made to agriculture, one being the commitment to defend agriculture at the WTO.
The government has not done much of a job in promoting the trade on which this country is so dependent. We need to have a stronger position. We need to work harder at the WTO to be able to open markets in other parts of the world, to remove the export subsidies that the Europeans seem to love so much and the domestic support on which American producers are dependent.
The U.S. farm bill that we are still dealing with is having an impact on the barley producers in my riding. Barley that is landing in southern Alberta right now is well below the cost of production for my producers. Uncle Sam is adding 70ยข a bushel to each farmer's bushel of barley coming in to Canada with no tariffs on it, competing against our products.
We need the government to stand up and say that is wrong. We have heard government members say a lot of things about Americans that have not helped, and that is part of the issue. We do not have the respect that Americans should provide to us to try to get rid of those barriers and those subsidies which they provide to their producers.
In 2003 we had thousands of tonnes of subsidized corn coming into this country competing with our products. These are the types of things that the government could make a difference.
I work very hard within the WTO trying to make some of these changes, both as a private producer and as member of producer organizations. I often felt like we were not getting the kind of support that we needed from our government.
This is the way we can fix some of these problems but working through the WTO is long term. Something we can do for producers right now is to get rid of this onerous deposit that is certainly hurting us.
The European common agriculture policy is still allowing the Europeans to subsidize their exports. The American farm bill and the U.S. common ag policy has cost Canadian grains and oilseed producers $1.3 billion a year. That has been going on far too long. We have not seen enough hard work to try and get rid of that.
Let me talk quickly about my farm. We heard talk about whether CAIS is working. We have heard many arguments from the other side of the House saying that it has worked. I spend a lot of money on an accountant to look after the books for my farm. I have a very good accountant and I keep very tight books. From all of the indications, we assumed that I would be getting a sizeable CAIS payment. I received the initial advance on that and then when I finally read all the rules and the actual accounting was done, I found that my farm had to pay back money to CAIS. That is how the CAIS program is working.
I urge those on the other side of the House to support the motion.