Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the question and the first part of the member's remarks noted that I happen to be from P.E.I. I spent 17 years in western Canada. I have probably been on a heck of a lot more farms than that particular member who happens to live in the west.
As far as promoting national marketing agencies, we have done it. We promoted a national potato board; however, the government of the day, and it was the Trudeau government I will admit, would not put it in place.
In terms of low farm incomes, I did a study and I would refer the member to it. It is called “Empowering Canadian Farmers in the Marketplace”. The member should put that under his pillow and read it late at night. He might learn something in terms of why farm incomes were low.
The reason farm incomes were low is because everyone else in the agricultural industries, from processors to chemical companies, to grain companies, to transporters and to financiers, everyone involved in the agricultural industry was making the biggest profits in the last two years while the farmers were making the lowest. Why? It is because farmers did not have power in the marketplace. That is why.