Madam Speaker, the member is greatly mistaken in saying that the government does not support the farm community. It does. It supports the farm community extensively.
I agree with the hon. member's point in terms of the difficulties the farm community is facing. There is no question about that, but keep in mind that government payments have never been higher than over the past two years: $4.8 billion federally and provincially in 2003 and $4.9 billion in 2004.
The member said that agriculture was not mentioned extensively in the budget. The reason is that most of it is regular programming, for example, the CAIS program, which can make up to $5 billion available, the cash advance program and the supply management system. The member said he would like to see some successful industries. The commodities in the supply management system are successful because they have taken charge of their own industries and have matched production to meet domestic demand. As a result of coming up with those kinds of programs they do receive a fair return on their labour and investment.
Yes, there are difficulties in the other industries. As the member knows, we have been looking at the reason for the long term decline in farm income at the farm gate. There are many reasons. We are trying to propose solutions.
At the end of March the minister announced a $1 billion farm improvement program. The member talked about that program. Farmers did not even have to apply for that program. If they had applied for the program two years ago, the same calculations were used to send out cheques automatically. I agree that some of the cheques were for small amounts but if farmers are basing it on inventories of cattle, they cannot go over the amount of cattle they have. Money is getting out to the farmers.
I know that $1 billion sounds like a lot to the consuming public, but when it is spread across the agriculture industry I admit it is not going to be huge. The bottom line is that $4.9 billion last year went to the agriculture community. Does more need to be done? Yes, it does.
I agree the industry is in considerable difficulty but the government has been standing with farmers. Whether it is BST, financial payments, support for the Wheat Board or the supply management system, the government is there and will continue to be there.