Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the member for Malpeque for his great work on this policy, something that both of us agree we need to go forward on.
There is no doubt that the grains and oilseeds industry across this country has had some incredibly difficult times. It does not matter if the grains and oilseeds producers were dealing with drought, depressed world markets, or increased subsidization from Europe, Japan and the United States, it always seemed that they were against the wall and there was just no long term outlook that proved to be favourable.
Now the circumstances have suddenly changed. There is a biofuel industry that has essentially created a marketplace for grains and oilseeds producers that is equal to the market of Japan, just right here in Canada. We also know that world prices are going very high and that is good news for our farmers. It means that they can make some long term plans on reinvesting in their operations and on making sure that they invest in the proper technology, and continue to be at the leading edge of new production and management techniques.
The member asked me about other sources in research and development. We do need to be doing a lot of work in this area. That is why we have invested dollars in research and development and through our community futures development groups to ensure that local organizations, as they move forward with developing their own plans for ethanol and biodiesel plants, have the resources for business and environmental planning and are able to get their companies off the ground. We have also supported companies like Iogen, which is doing a lot of great work in cellulose and making the sugars in cellulose available for ethanol production.
We are going to continue to move ahead and work along with our partners around the world to ensure we produce a better product, and a product that is going to be definitely good for the environment and make use of more of these waste products that right now we are just throwing into landfills.