Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to follow the deputy critic for the New Democrats. She does a fantastic job on behalf of our producers in Canada, and I wish to thank her for her remarks today.
It is my pleasure in the House as well to share my space with the NDP critic for agriculture. It is hard to follow in his stead, because he knows this subject very well.
I am a third generation prairie product, having been born in Edmonton, as were my parents, but back before that, all of our family were farm stock. We were proud farm producers, and I grew up visiting family farms with my father.
In my earlier career, when I ran the Environmental Law Centre, I was made an honorary member of the Preservation of Agricultural Land Association. I have felt absolutely obliged since to stand up, at any opportunity I have, on behalf of our producers. I am very proud of them. Despite how the government often speaks of how our gross domestic product is based on fossil fuels, our farm products, in fact, are a major part of the revenue of both this country and my province of Alberta.
At the outset, it is important to keep in mind that railroads are under federal jurisdiction. The government has a popular refrain. Any time we raise any issue in this House, whether it is education, health care, or the environment, the Conservatives say it is a provincial jurisdiction. This is one area where they absolutely cannot raise that defence. This is absolutely under federal jurisdiction, and the Conservatives have the power to act. It is up to the government to choose to intervene and to act, or not. To this point in time, a study has been proposed, but no specific action.
If I could remind the members of the House and those who are following the debate, to the credit of the Speaker, he agreed to the need for this emergency debate this evening, and that is because three million tonnes of wheat and canola are sitting stranded in the Prairies. We are told that railway congestion has resulted in millions of dollars in demurrage penalties for grain companies unable to load ships in a timely fashion. Many farmers have willing buyers and no way to deliver the product, so understandably, many grain producers are speaking out and are calling for action by the Government of Canada. That is why, as members of Parliament, we are standing up and echoing that sentiment and are asking the government to respond to those requests.
As my colleagues have mentioned, the government has taken a number of measures. It killed the Wheat Board, contrary to calls by many producers that they depended on the Wheat Board in exact situations like this to look after their interests. When those grains were pooled and could be delivered to any elevator, we could have avoided, at least partially, this problem.
The government also, of course, shut the gates on the prairie pastures. Why is that significant? It is because many of the prairies' small and medium farmers are having to sell off their herds, and they will be relying 100% on the grain crops. They are needing to get this grain to market all the more so they can afford to buy seed and plant the crops this spring, which is not that far off.
This is an emergency. The government has spoken loudly for other sectors. It has spent hundreds of millions of Canadian tax dollars trying to get export markets for our fossil fuels. Where is equal enthusiasm for this sector of our economy? They say that they will do a study, and maybe five years from now, they might have some ideas, and maybe they can take some action.
I do not really see equivalent action from the government in standing up for the agriculture sector. I hope from the debate today, we will see a little bit more action on exactly the kind of proposals the farmers have brought forward and that many reviews proposed, as I understand it, as far back as 2002.
The delay is not because of a failing of the producers. They have forwarded the contracts. The delay is because they simply cannot get the rail companies to deliver their product to the port. The reality is that producers are now receiving less than half the value under the agreed upon contracts.
This is really serious, because I have heard member after member from the other side stand up tonight and brag about the bumper crop this year. The bumper crop this year did not arise because we killed the Wheat Board. The bumper crop arose because of good growing conditions. I am told by the producers that Statistics Canada initially forecast a much lower crop.
However, they were able to—