Mr. Speaker, my colleague has a lot of experience in this House in terms of agriculture. But, I am taken aback to hear him say that Canadian farmers have already invested heavily to meet the demand. I do not believe that the plants are ready yet.
However, I will ask him a question, a question that very capable people in the field have also asked. Why would we not sell the surplus corn to the United States, given that they have ethanol projects that require much more corn than they are able to produce? That is my first question.
Next, many people who are very knowledgeable about these matters have come to Ottawa and said that it may be true that ethanol is no longer the main cause of rising prices. Rather, it is more our past reserves that drove up prices.
Darrin Qualman, from the National Farmer's Union in Saskatoon, told us that five years ago there were 115 million tonnes of various grain reserves around the world, but now there are 54 million tonnes, and that it was industry that lowered this quantity in order to be able to force prices to go up.
My second question is this: why could we not sell the corn produced here in Canada to rebuild the food stocks around the world?