Mr. Speaker, my colleague raises an excellent point. Is this a priority for farmers? It certainly is a priority for farmers.
The future of farming is a huge concern for our farmers all across Canada. The member quite rightly pointed out that both the minister and I have been travelling across Canada meeting with farmers from all the different agricultural commodities to talk about the future of farming and the challenges they face today and the challenges that they will be facing in the future.
Many farmers operate family farms and they feel that their family farms are at risk. One of the challenges they face is the younger generation having access to enough capital in order acquire the family farm. This is exactly what this legislation is aimed at. We are talking about increasing loan limits from $250,000 to an aggregate of $500,000.
As I mentioned before, we want to increase the loan rate for beginning farmers from 80% to 90%. This makes a big difference. For example, if a farm operation has an inherent value of one million dollars, a new farmer under the legislation as it exists today would have to borrow up to $800,000. He would still have to come up $200,000 himself. However, once this legislation passes, he would only need to have $100,000. We are going to be halving the amount of money that he would have to put forward to acquire a farm from another family member.
Once again, the co-operatives play such an instrumental role in the health and vitality of our agricultural sector. We have worked with co-operatives and co-operatives want greater accessibility to this type of financial resource that we are presenting here today.
Therefore, once again, I urge my colleagues in the opposition parties to join with me in voting for the rapid acceleration of this proposed legislation through the House for the benefit of our farmers.