Madam Speaker, I guess it leads to the whole problem that producers in Canada face. For the last 12 years, that government over there has never understood the validity and the value of the farm gate. Far more of its efforts go toward the agrifood side, the processing sector, which is alive and well in this country.
As for the farm gate, the farm family struggling out there has never found favour with this government. If we were to check into the last election and the ones before that one, we would see that when they had a choice on election day, rural areas of this country have not elected a person from the government side in the last little while. Rural areas do not see this government as farm gate friendly. All of these programs are developed by people in the Ottawa bubble who have probably never even seen a cow, let alone harvested grain, and have no idea of what is involved in making that happen, no idea of the sweat and anguish that goes into this thing we call agriculture now.
Canadian farmers are carrying a $50 billion debt load. There are many reasons for that. One of them is the huge transition phase in which we find ourselves in going global, but the problem is that we do not have the backstop of our own government in order to make that change.
The European Union, the Americans and even the Brazilians are doing a far better job of backstopping their farm gates than this particular Liberal government ever has or ever will, because the Liberals just do not understand it.