Madam Speaker, like my colleague I believe very strongly that we should do everything possible to nurture and protect agriculture in all its extraordinarily diverse forms in Canada.
If we think of Quebec and Ontario, it is amazing to consider that at one end there are wine growing areas and at the other end there is salmon farming and seal hunting. Commodity groups in those provinces alone are absolutely extraordinary and each of them is different. Grains and oilseeds farmers have particular needs. There are also farmers involved with soft fruits, greenhouse industries, and market garden industries. My riding has beef, sheep, and goat farmers. There is also a very large bison herd.
We have to nurture all of those industries not only this year or next year but nurture them in such a way that each of those areas remain attractive to farmers. The success of us feeding ourselves depends on the success of farmers in all of these areas.
My colleague mentioned the point that this is a small country. Canada has a population of 31 million people. There is only a certain amount that 31 million people can eat even if they eat five meals a day.
The province of Quebec is by far the largest province in this huge country of ours. We have an incredible amount of productive land, some of it in production some of it not. We have a moral duty to produce food for the world.
I wonder if my colleague would care to think aloud, perhaps a little philosophically, about how we, as a small country, could produce vast quantities of food for the rest of the world. How could we do that on the world scene?