Madam Chair, I am disappointed in the way the government has come forward tonight with no real clear indication that it is actually going to do anything. The minister just wrapped this up as if it was not really important.
We are here today because of what the member for Timmins—James Bay has coined a “political walk away” from rural Canada. In the May 2 edition of The Hill Times he stated:
For the last dozen or so years, farmers have been left on their own to compete and to cope in the face of increasingly growing international and domestic obstacles. Farmers have adapted. They've grown more efficient, and have moved towards increasing economies of scale. The fact is, they've hit the wall and there just doesn't seem to be any political inclination on the part of the ruling Liberals to find a new way forward.