Mr. Chair, we are in a terrible situation when it comes to farming in Canada right now. Farmer debt has doubled in the last decade. We have to look at where the responsibility lies here and I will take the point of the Leader of the Opposition that now is not the time to point fingers but to talk about the issues.
Many farmers today are producing the food that we eat at a loss in the big cities or anywhere else in the country. Their family members have to work off the farm in order to subsidize the food that we eat.
I met with farmers out here and I met with farmers during the election. They would take out their accounts. I remember one event during the campaign. A farmer came to us and this was a bit of a surprise. He showed up with the accounts of his farm. He showed that he and his family this year were going to lose $45,000 that had to be subsidized by his wife and by him taking another job and so on.
My question has to do with whether the government is really going to stand up for farmers. The Prime Minister mentioned the whole issue of the WTO. It happens that on January 31 of this year the government lost an appeal at the Canadian International Trade Tribunal that gave up a right that Canada had negotiated in the last round of the WTO and had to do with the dairy sector. The dairy sector is now open to uncontrolled imports of milk protein concentrates. This is going to hurt our farmers dramatically.
We heard yesterday from the President of the Dairy Farmers of Canada, Jacques Laforge, that there was a meeting and an answer was promised in two weeks. That was two months ago.
My question is for the Prime Minister. When are we going to see action to protect dairy farmers before they go under and we will not be getting milk products produce by them here in this country because they simply will not have the funds to run their farms?