Mr. Speaker, I am putting forward this motion under Standing Order 52(2) to adjourn the House for the purpose of discussing an urgent matter that needs our immediate attention. It has to do with the agricultural crisis. I am aware of the motion put forward earlier this week by my party, but the farming crisis gets worse with each new day.
A farmer in my riding pleaded with me to not forget the farming crisis. He and his fellow farmers have to go back into the fields to work. They cannot be on Parliament Hill or involved in demonstrations to educate Canadians every day. They need to go to work and they need us, as elected members of Parliament, to do something about the crisis they face.
Higher interest rates announced this week will worsen the crisis. There have been more farm bankruptcies in the past 24 hours. Parliament needs to take the necessary steps to prevent this. If the government were to give a bankable commitment of sufficient emergency funds, as we have suggested, of $1 billion more than announced previously by the government, the farmers could go to their banks and have a fighting chance to deal with those across the table, who are being asked to loan farmers the funds they need to buy the seeds to produce the wheat for the food we eat.
Spring planting is a very small window for these farmers. If they cannot borrow the money now to purchase the seeds to put in the ground, some of these farmers will go under and they will not come back.
Our farmers work very hard to be productive. This crisis is not of their doing. It comes from years of bad trade deals and neglect on the part of successive Conservative and Liberal governments, which have reduced the once proud industry to begging in its own country on its knees by protesting in front of Parliament Hill.
Our farmers have done everything possible to shine a glaring light on the real and immediate danger to our food sovereignty that our country now faces. They have made it abundantly clear that if we are so reckless as to allow the family farm industry to go down for lack of seed money, we will forever regret it as a nation.
This is a life and death emergency for the family farm and our farmers. I urge you, Mr. Speaker, to allow this emergency debate today.