Larry Spencer

[Species at Risk Act, February 21st, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour and privilege to rise to speak to Bill C-5, the species at risk act. Let me assure the House and all those who may be interested, the Canadian Alliance is committed to protecting and preserving Canada's natural environment and our endangered species.

We have an obligation and responsibility to preservation because we have been blessed with a nation that has such a wide diversity of terrain, species and the great wonders of nature. People come from all over the world to see this beautiful land. It is certainly up to us to ensure that we are good stewards of our total environment.

We are concerned about preserving the water, air and land for those who will follow us. We also need to be concerned about preserving the species that reside in the water, air and on the land. We are talking about the act that would impact upon some of those different species that live in all those environments.

I will mention at least four of the major areas of concern that I have noticed in the bill and then probably spend more time addressing the first one, which is the fair and reasonable compensation that must be guaranteed for property owners and resource workers who might suffer loss because of the expense incurred in protecting an endangered species.

Second, we need to be aware that any criminal liability resulting from the legislation must require intent; that it not simply an accidental act that may occur, which is entirely possible under the legislation. We would not want to see someone prosecuted for an accident they had not intended.

Third, there must be co-operation with the provinces for success. It would be unworkable for the federal government to impose legislation without ensuring the provincial governments are in place or without having agreements for administration and enforcement.

The gun control act is a good illustration of how the federal government sometimes fails to bring on the support of the provinces. It was even sued over that act because it was so unnecessary, unusable and ill-applied in some of our rural areas, especially in the prairie provinces. We noted recently that we allowed $200 million for the war against terrorism but we spent $700 million for the war against duck hunters and farmers in the registration of guns.

Fourth, there needs to be an acceptance of at least some advice and suggestions that the voices of the opposition bring. Those who sit on this side of the House are representatives of the people, the same as those who sit over there. Our voices need to be heard and it needs to be more than just giving lip service in committee where committee work can have an impact on the legislation being made.

Hundreds of changes have been proposed over the years to this type of legislation and very little has been received. It is interesting to note how the government comes along, lets the committee go through all its work and then steps back in and even reverses the work of the committee. That is a terrible thing to have happen to those who have worked so diligently.

The government has failed repeatedly to enact the will of the majority of Canadians on many occasions and the autocratic actions of the government have happened on a daily basis.

It is really hard to understand why the government is so set against making obvious improvements to legislation. We in many committees make good suggestions. There have been dozens of them to this bill that would simply improve it, make it better and safer for the people. It would protect a few people as well as a few endangered species, yet we see a government that has ignored the voices from the other side simply because the opposition has accepted it.

I suggest that it would be a lot better if we could see some of this legislation changed in committee and changed in the House rather than just let it go through as was written by some government employee.

There are several categories that are affected by this endangered species act. In Saskatchewan there are birds, mammals and fish that will be affected and in particular, the swift fox, the sage grouse, the burrowing owl, the piping plover, the mountain plover, the sage thrasher, the prairie chicken and a number of others.

Full compensation should be outlined in this legislation by elected members and not left to regulations and discretionary actions of bureaucrats later on or left to the pressures of special interest groups that may later on push through their agenda. It needs to be specified clearly that landowners and resource users will be protected from over zealous ploys.

The phrase “may apply for compensation” is not good enough. The legislation should read they shall be compensated. The phrase “opportunity to sue” is not good enough. Why is it that the little guys, the individuals, are always told they have the right to sue for compensation? Why do we have to leave it to the little guys to sue? Why can we not just say that they have the right and it will be given? Why do we have to demand that these people go through a long legal process to receive what is perceived to be a normal ordinary right?

As my colleague has already mentioned, in the rural areas there is the kill and bury principle. There is another name for it. I do not want to categorize all landowners or all farmers in this, but I have actually heard this said in the rural area of Saskatchewan. It is the SSS movement. That stands for shoot, shovel and shut up.

If we truly want to protect the endangered species, we have to have the landowner on side. We have to have him convinced that he does not need to shoot, shovel and shut up. We need to have him convinced that he will be protected as well as the endangered species and therefore he can lend his co-operation fully to protecting these endangered species rather than having some fear that somebody will swoop in and overtake a part of his land.

Sometimes these landowners may even go as far as to make their land unattractive to these endangered species. They may go so far as removing them from their land. This act may in fact go the opposite way of what it is meant to do.

The regulations are such that they may mean, for example, that farmers may have to adapt practices that accommodate nesting birds or in logging they may have to go around areas where certain species exist. They may lose a part of their land. Just recently in Saskatchewan a number of farmers lost hundreds of acres because of a couple of successive winters and springs of extra water in a particular area which flooded their land. They were unable to drain it because of some regulation under the oceans and fisheries act to protect fish. That was in the middle of Saskatchewan.

The family impact can be high, income can be decreased, the value of farmland can decrease and whole families can sometimes be displaced. That is a hardship that we do not need to place on our rural people. There is no reason why the frontline soldiers in a battle should be expected to bear the cost of the war. That is what we are trying to do with those landowners and those workers in this area.

Respect for the rights of property owners is what we are talking about. Endangered species, yes, protect them, but let us also protect the rights of the individual landowners.

[Youth Criminal Justice Act, February 4th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, does the hon. member have any ideas or perception as to what the new youth legislation would do to address the chronic repeat offence of car thefts in Regina? I read the figure this week and have forgotten it but the number is around 4,000. These have been attributed primarily to a small group of 30 to 60 people who are stealing cars over and again.

What is in the legislation that would improve the situation in Regina and which would go a little further than the Saskatchewan justice minister's solution which was to hire six new social workers?

[Supply, December 4th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak on behalf of the constituents of Regina--Lumsden--Lake Centre on the opposition motion. A delayed crisis budget is a poor substitute for what Canadians deserve from their government. Canadians deserve a normal budget on a regular basis at predetermined times.

Has the Liberal Party found it easier to run the government through members of the inner circle of cabinet? How is parliament expected to function when the government administers public policy through the core of its inner circle? These are questions that are being asked in my riding.

I understand that I am one of the newer members of the House. That does not mean I do not understand that government is abusing power and authority in many cases by investing so much power in the Prime Minister's Office.

Since I am not fully acclimatized to this place it is easier for me to see that is where the power is coming from. There is such a thin green line, as I have said in talks in Saskatchewan, between us and a dictatorship. The erosion of democracy may be the reason for the rumour that the upcoming budget is not even from the Minister of Finance but from the Prime Minister.

Canadians deserve better. The Canadian Alliance is calling for $2 billion in national defence spending that would make us a more credible member of NATO. Another billion to our homeland securities providers would certainly not be an unrealistic expectation. The equipment and the resources given to our military are embarrassing to many of us.

Canadians deserve better when it comes to the support of agriculture. It is an established fact that the last decade has not served Canadians well. They have seen their financial situation worsen and the government is not likely to make any meaningful corrections in the budget.

Canada faced one of the worst droughts on record and the Liberal government could not seem to find any more than $2 million. I am not sure if it found that for Saskatchewan farmers to drill new water wells and dig dugouts. The agency responsible for that ran out of money in late spring or early summer. Saskatchewan asked for something like $5 million and according to the latest figures it might get $2 million.

Canadians deserve better support and more realistic employment insurance premiums. On November 30 the Minister of Finance announced a cut in EI premiums to $2.20 per $100 of insurable earnings. That is a nickel a hundred. Based on an annual income of $39,000 this EI premium would save workers just under $20 a year. A massive saving, is it not?

By contrast, CPP premiums would increase by almost $140 a year for the average Canadian worker and even more for the employer. The worker is suffering a $120 loss for the year. This year the EI account will run a surplus of $6 billion, bringing the cumulative surplus to somewhere over $40 billion by next March. The chief actuary has said that EI premiums could be cut to as low as $1.75 per $100 and that should likely work for quite some time. Yet we are only seeing them lowered to the $2.20 mark.

The Canadian Alliance motion proposes an EI cut of 15 cents this year with reductions in the following years to reach a break even point as soon as possible. EI premiums are job killers. In uncertain economic times we should be encouraging job creation, not maintaining job killing payroll taxes.

The Minister of Finance agreed with that at one time. In May 1994 he said that payroll taxes were a cancer on job creation. Employers and employees were apparently not a high priority with the Liberal government. If they were, the minister would accept some of the repeated calls the opposition has made toward reducing EI premiums. Canadians deserve better and stronger health care funding by the federal government.

After all, the federal government is the major tax collector of our nation. Both in Saskatchewan and Alberta there are propositions to deliver controversial policy changes for health care yet we expect that the Minister of Health will stick with his approach of around 14 cents, and for some provinces maybe 17 cents. We expect him to embrace the status quo and challenge anyone to alter the existing principles of the Health Canada Act. Is that good enough for Canadians? No, I do not believe that it is good enough.

The government has not even returned to the 1995 levels of funding and participation let alone to the 50% rate that was originally used in the early days of medicare.

Some of the items I have mentioned are not specifically mentioned in the Canadian Alliance motion. However the first point, the reallocation of financial resources from wasteful, low and falling priorities into higher need areas would allow for a broad number of changes as well as all the ones that the Alliance motion mentions.

A lot has been said here and many people will wonder why there is this exercise and why the Alliance would bring forth such a motion when it is so near the time that the budget is coming down. That is a legitimate question. We believe that this has been a good exercise. It has allowed many points of view to be expressed. Many members have offered suggestions of how prioritization can take place. The motion has called attention to the fact that prioritization needs to happen.

The hon. member across the way mentioned HRDC and CIDA among other things. It is not that the Canadian Alliance opposes those departments but anyone who has seen any of the spending reports from those places will absolutely know there is much fat to be cut. There are many areas of waste and useless government spending.

We believe that a government's first priority is that of safety and security for its own citizens. People throughout time have gathered together and they bind together for their own security and protection. That is the basis.

We need to talk about providing infrastructure so that our economy can function and things can happen. We seem always to get so far ahead of ourselves. We are so interested in providing for all of the different kinds of programs that we forget to take care of the infrastructure.

I am very grateful that we have had the opportunity today to address these issues.

[Health, November 20th, 2001]

Madam Speaker, last year Saskatchewan's Premier Romanow appointed a commission on health care in Saskatchewan headed by Mr. Ken Fyke. The report was submitted to the current premier, Lorne Calvert, on April 6 of this year. Among other things it recommended 50 fewer hospitals, a reduction in acute care beds and suggested turning family physicians into salaried employees of the health districts.

The Fyke report was submitted only three days after the government commissioned former Premier Romanow to head a commission on the future of health care in Canada. These studies cost millions. Thankfully Saskatchewan has not yet taken action on the Fyke report. The Romanow report will not be completed for another year.

Saskatchewan was the birthplace of medicare. Yet its NDP government policies are eroding health care. The Liberal government contributes only about 12 cents of every dollar expended on health care. This also contributes to the erosion.

In Saskatchewan like a rock refers to a song or a tough truck—

[Criminal Code, November 9th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, it is with a great deal of conviction that I rise in the House today to speak to Bill C-329, a bill to repeal section 43 of the criminal code which states:

Every schoolteacher, parent or person standing in the place of a parent is justified in using force by way of correction toward a pupil or child, as the case may be, who is under his care, if the force does not exceed what is reasonable under the circumstances.

Martin's Annual Criminal Code 2001 states:

The persons who may rely upon this section are schoolteachers, parents or those standing in the place of a parent...This section authorizes the use of force only where it is by way of correction, that is, for the benefit of the education of the child.

We live in a time when people of all ages, walks of life and viewpoints are following the philosophy of looking out for number one. That means they are concerned only with what is best, easiest or most beneficial for them. It is not easy to train, teach and discipline a child in the right way but it is the responsibility of parents and teachers to do that very thing.

Martin's Annual Criminal Code 2001 says the use of force is authorized when it is for correction to benefit the education of the child. In this day and age we confuse ourselves by always trying to be politically correct. Today it is politically correct to trumpet the rights of everyone from children to burrowing owls.

Rights are fine and good as long as we maintain a proper perspective. I am for human rights, children's rights and parental rights. I believe parents have the right to the best means at their disposal to train their children the way they feel they should.

Neither the Canadian Alliance nor I condone the abuse or neglect of children in any form. However we believe parents are the ones primarily responsible for the training and disciplining of their children. Children are not wards of the state. They are the gifts of God to a set of parents to whom He has given the right and responsibility of parenthood.

It is not for the government to interfere with the exercise of parental rights or responsibilities. Guidelines may be given. That has been done in section 43 of the criminal code. To remove that section would be to revoke the God given right parents have to carry out the proper training and disciplining they desire.

Protection is already provided in section 43 to ensure against physical abuse of the child. It also protects the parent or teacher who needs to take physical measures to properly contribute to the education or training of the child.

Many people today are neglecting and abusing their children by failing to correct, discipline, teach and train them properly. Some are afraid to take up the challenge for fear of damaging the poor child's self-esteem. Many are afraid of being accused of abuse and seeing their child whisked away by some bleeding heart social worker.

Some people are perhaps afraid because of recent Canadian incidents or other people's opinions but are totally frustrated by the difficulty of their own children. They are unable to cope and so they yell, nag and verbally abuse their children. This to me is a greater and more damaging way to abuse the child. It is much harder on the child's self-esteem than properly administered and well timed corporal correction.

Children cannot be left to themselves. They are not capable of making the proper decisions on their own. They must be taught and directed to understand and know the right choices. They must be taught honesty, work, kindness, respect and responsibility.

What child has real self-esteem if he has never experienced the loving correction of a parent? What child has real self-esteem if he finds he can no longer read well enough to keep up with the rest of his class because his teachers were afraid to take disciplinary action?

Our children have the right to be given proper attention, teaching, training, correction and, yes, even discipline. Discipline is more than talking, yelling or complaining. Many parents mistakenly assume child discipline is simply instructing children by telling them what to do. Instruction is only part of the process. Instruction is only what we say.

What we do plays a part. That is influence. It shows whether parents are honest and respectful of themselves. It shows who they really are. Through it the image of who and what they are is revealed. One's influence and image may contradict what one says.

A child is likely to follow the image and influence rather than the instruction of the parent. To learn to follow is the greater part of one's education. To learn to follow the right things requires the right discipline.

Martin's Criminal Code 2001 states that section 43 of the criminal code:

--authorizes the use of force only where it is by way of correction, that is, for the benefit of the child.

To learn to follow a course of life that results in the positive aspects of personhood requires numerous course corrections as does an airliner's trip across the Atlantic Ocean.

Discipline is for the benefit of the child. It assists the child in making the course corrections known by the parent or teacher to be necessary. Discipline and correction are for the benefit of one's education.

The Concise Oxford Dictionary , ninth edition, defines discipline as “mental, moral or physical training” or “adversity used to bring about such training”. It defines disciple which is of course the root word of discipline as “a follower or pupil of a leader or teacher”.

We were all made or created to learn mental, moral and physical lessons from physical consequences to our bodies. In Regina we learn to put on a coat in winter so our skin does not freeze when we step out the door. We learn not to eat little green apples or we will get a bellyache. We learn not to jump from the top of the apple tree lest we hurt ourselves. In other words, physical correction and discipline is a natural form of education and learning.

Diana Baumrind, a research psychologist at the University of California in Berkley, calls into question the current claim that any physical punishment is harmful to a child. She said in a recent study on the effects of corporal punishment:

We found no evidence for unique detrimental effects of normative physical punishment...I am not an advocate of spanking, but a blanket injunction against its use is not warranted by the evidence. It is reliance on physical punishment, not whether or not it is used at all, that is associated with harm to the child.

Baumrind said that in the absence of compelling evidence of harm parental autonomy and family privacy should be protected.

As has already been mentioned, Ontario Superior Court Justice McCombs held up the constitutionality of corporal punishment in his recent ruling and said it was within the sphere of respectability and exceptionality.

Why would we want to undo something as important and reasonable as that? I could never support such a limitation on the freedom of parents and the right of children to receive proper and lawful discipline from their parents and teachers.

There are many ways to discipline. Every child is different. Corporal correction is not the first line of discipline. Of my four children three required almost no corporal discipline. However one of my children's needs was entirely different. I needed the option of section 43. I strongly oppose the repeal of section 43 of the criminal code. I find the idea oppressive and offensive.

[Strychnine Solutions, October 22nd, 2001]

The hon. agriculture minister made that statement. He is also on record as saying that he has no evidence of this affecting the Canadian economy because of the restrictions on strychnine. This is highly debatable, as we are finding out today, because it has a great impact on our Saskatchewan farmers. That is evident.

Of course strychnine poison is perhaps not the only solution. The gophinator has been mentioned and I was interested to hear that the hon. member across the way mentioned that they had to test to see if there would be harmful effects from injecting anhydrous ammonia into the soil. It is interesting to me that we can inject anhydrous ammonia into the soil to raise our food, but when it comes to using it for pest control we have to make sure it is okay. I do not get the logic. I do not really understand it but I guess that is the way some people think.

There are some other chemicals or drugs that would kill gophers, such as anticoagulants. They may be effective if repeated doses are applied in a certain minimal length of time, that is, within two or three days. Perhaps that would be better, but as my hon. colleague has pointed out who wants to go back to all those holes over and over to make the necessary applications? If we examine the evidence I believe we will discover that strychnine is in fact the only truly effective way to control these pests.

Each province has regulations for the use of strychnine. We seem to be so worried about where it is going and what it may do but these regulations are already in place. In Saskatchewan the sale of strychnine is restricted to pest control operators, farmers or persons authorized in government approved pest control programs. Only those people are able to get it at all. They are held accountable and responsible. It seems to me that there is a lot more accountability and responsibility placed upon the people who would use strychnine for gopher poisoning than there is upon people who use a lot of other things that are a lot more dangerous for the general population of Canada.

The vendor of these products maintains a record of sales and has the name, address and signature of the buyer along with the quantity purchased. Detailed records are kept by the Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities, of which Sinclair Harrison, as I mentioned, is the president. In Saskatchewan alone there are around 250 pest control officers, one pest control officer for nearly each of the 297 rural municipalities, and they are quite well trained in the use of strychnine.

However, one of the problems with the strychnine poisoning method is that to be most effective it must be used at a certain time of the year, pretty well no later than mid-March. As cute as these little gophers are, they do not all come up out of the ground at one time. The first ones up are the males. They stick their heads up, look around and see what is on the horizon for the new spring. They come up one to two weeks ahead of the females. The females begin to awake from hibernation and stick their heads up and poke around. When the level of female gophers is high enough, that is when the chemical needs to be put down. It needs to be put down early in the year, before we have hundreds more little gophers later on. There can be five to ten gophers in a litter. For effective control, it must be done at a certain time.

We are having trouble at the municipal level in getting the supplies on time. There needs to be a distribution system that would get them there on time. This would include strict control methods as to how they are stored, proper training for those who use them and those kinds of things. These things need to be done. There is no reason we cannot be prepared and have that ready.

The government needs to have some sort of assigned mechanism in place and enter into talks with the municipal governments on how these kinds of things can be put in place and controlled. The government needs to talk to cattle organizations and various farm organizations to reflect their concerns and implement appropriate measures to control the increasing costs gophers are afflicting on our farm economy.

There is no direct pipeline held season after season to handle these kinds of things. Nonetheless these are problems that can easily be addressed. They need to be if that is the only way we have of controlling the gopher population.

It seems the government would want to know what the effects of the restriction on strychnine are. We are asking that this information be put out. If we need to find other solutions then the government should know that. This is a drastically increasing problem.

My hon. colleague mentioned gophers popping out and taking down all the tulip bulbs. I was here a few days ago when we had the memorial service for the police officers and firemen who lost their lives. I was wondering what would happen if the front lawn contained the population of gophers required to get all those tulip bulbs. Let us think of all the holes. How many of those firemen and policemen would have been injured, like our cattle are, by falling into the holes as they marched through the parade grounds blowing their bagpipes?

[Strychnine Solutions, October 22nd, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I too wish to give thanks to my hon. colleague for his efforts in raising this issue. It is also a great problem in my riding and we have had quite a number of people address it. Like all problems, though, attention is required if we are to see any solution.

During the last session of parliament I was privileged to lay upon the Table petitions from my constituents and from a number of others in Saskatchewan. There were approximately 300 signatures on the one I had. According to an article in the National Post , farmers sent Ottawa a petition of 5,000 signatures in total asking that they be allowed to use concentrated liquid strychnine to battle an annual gopher infestation. The animals have been causing trouble on Saskatchewan farmlands in growing numbers since 1992 when Ottawa restricted the sale of the poison.

There is an interesting quote from the article. “The poisons being purchased are just not effective”, says Sinclair Harrison, a Saskatchewan farmer. “It makes the gophers sick but it does not kill them. We don't want to see anything suffer”.

Not only is Sinclair Harrison a farmer, he also happens to be the head of SARM, the Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities. We will be saying more about that organization in just a moment.

Each of the prairie provinces is susceptible to millions of dollars of damage. In fact the hon. minister, Mr. Vanclief himself, at one time said that gophers--

[Grey Nuns, October 5th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, it gives me great pleasure to rise today to recognize the contributions of the 1966 graduating class of Regina Grey Nuns nurses. This week representatives from the class are marking their 35th anniversary in our nation's capital.

For almost nine decades the Grey Nuns have provided the utmost in compassion and care to families in the Regina area. These dedicated women have been not only active in the nursing field but have been leaders in the communities in which they live.

With heartfelt dedication these women have shared their vocation and talents with those in need. Their exemplary commitment to the health and well-being of the Canadian people is a reflection of their love.

On behalf of all my constituents I extend my gratitude to the Grey Nuns nurses for their dedication to serving the citizens of Regina and Saskatchewan. May their 35th anniversary reunion be filled with joy and fond memories.

[National Security, September 28th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, Canadians are concerned about security at our Canada-U.S. border. This week I received a shocking letter from a constituent whose husband, a truck driver, was re-entering Canada from the U.S. only hours after the tragic events of September 11. In her letter she states the following startling facts:

My husband was not asked for any form of identification, his country of residency, or his destination...and...the crossing was only about 250 miles from the horrible tragedy unfolding in New York City.

My constituent's questions to the government are: Why was this border crossing not asking the most basic identity questions before allowing someone into our country and why are we not doing more to keep Canada safe and secure?

In spite of what the Prime Minister says, Canadians are concerned that Canada has become a safe haven for terrorists. It is high time the government acted responsibly to ensure the safety of Canadians by moving quickly with effective security measures and the much needed anti-terrorism legislation.

[Agriculture, September 27th, 2001]

Mr.Chairman, I want to attack this from a human suffering point of view. I have in my hand a letter I received today from a constituent in Regina. Members may wonder why I would start off with this but here are the first two lines of the letter:

I want to let you know that I do not want to see any taxpayer money going to bail out Air Canada. The service they provide to us in Regina is not worthy of any support.

We have heard that the government may be bailing out such a major company as Air Canada. It has been explained to us often that it is because there are so many jobs involved, that it is our transportation and that it is our national airline.

Tonight we are talking about our national industry called agriculture, an industry that has a national impact on jobs. It is said that probably one in seven jobs in Saskatchewan is farm or agriculture related. We are very definitely talking about jobs when it comes to agriculture in Saskatchewan.

The Canadian Alliance has put out a little bulletin for us. The first point on it says “Canadian farmers from coast to coast are suffering from drought conditions”. I want to pull one word out of that because I believe there are more than drought conditions causing our farmers to suffer. Drought conditions have just heightened and increased it. They are suffering from a number of things. We all know that they have been suffering for a long time from the depressed prices of commodities. They do not get what they should for their crops. I remember hearing those same prices when I was a boy growing up and that was back in the days when they were greenback dollars.

The farmers are not only suffering from poor crop prices but they are also suffering from high input costs, which the government has failed to do anything about. The tax on fuel could have been removed. It would not have been a handout but at least it would have been of some help. I am told that there is another hidden cost, although I am sure some farmers would argue this. On one hand perhaps the low dollar helps, but a farmer told me the other day that the U.S. exchange on a new combine is in the neighbourhood of $80,000 being added to the cost of the new machine.

The drought of course is causing them to suffer as well as the prices. We can see that as the other members and I fly back and forth to our ridings. As we get closer to the ground we can see the blotchy fields and the arid spots where there is no straw, no stubble, no crop. We understand the drought is causing a great amount of suffering for people who were already near the edge and the unusually dry weather just pushes them over.

There are some other things that cause farmer to suffer. I have never heard anyone mention this but what I call forced diversification causes our farmers to suffer.

One of my constituents told me that in the spring, when they are considering what to plant, they like to keep it down to a maximum of six different crop varieties in order to control their machinery costs and harmonize their activities a little more. However, he said that he had to still diversify into seven different crops this year. He is very diversified. We cannot suggest that to farmers any longer because they are as diversified as they can get. They may diversify into an area that is supposed to be good and then the price drops out of it and they are hurting again. It is not a long range answer.

They are suffering because they are penalized for working off the farm. The young farmers who are really trying hard to make it work, work not only on the farm but put in many hours, perhaps even full time hours, at other jobs. Then when they apply for some of the assistance programs out there they are disqualified simply because they are making money in an off farm way.

Some of the farmers are suffering because they are working on the farm. We have some farmers in Saskatchewan manufacturing playground equipment or farm equipment. I was on one farm where the farmer was making his own crop sprayer. It was a beautiful sprayer. It would pass inspection at any farm implement factory. It was just a beautiful job. He had to make his own equipment. Farmers are suffering through the extra work they have to put in to design, build, make do, repair and work on their own equipment because of a lack of funds.

They are suffering because of the declining demand for used farm equipment and the prices for it. It is one thing to be able to have a fire sale and walk away from a business having sold the inventory, but try selling the used farm equipment or try selling the farm. There is just a dead end there for many of these farmers and they are suffering because they cannot even liquidate in a manner that would let them get out from under the debt load they are already carrying.

For years in Saskatchewan there has been a lot of farm counselling going on. For a number of years the Saskatchewan government has even had to sponsor and take care of counselling for farmers. They are counselled for depression. I would be depressed too if I had so little hope of making a living with such a debt load over me. It goes so far as to end up in marital counselling. Many farmers have experienced family breakdown because of this extreme pressure upon them. It goes right to the point of suicide counselling for farmers who feel they have no other choice but to consider taking their own lives.

We are talking about suffering. We are talking about the lives of people. We are talking about jobs being lost because of the crisis. We are talking about the kinds of things the government should be concerned about and want to help out with when it can.

In our constituency we have farmers losing the very land that their farm fathers fought for in World War II. Talk about a guilt trip. Talk about suffering. These poor fellows are crushed because they feel like they have failed their families and their fathers who fought so desperately to pass on the farm to them.

Where do they look for a job? Where do they go? Someone who lives in a city and loses a job has a little better opportunity to move to another source of income than what our farmers are faced with in the rural parts of our country. They suffer because of that. They have little choice in what they can do and where they can go.

I believe this is a crisis that should invoke compassion but also an understanding that we are dealing not only with a drought crisis: we are dealing with the loss of an industry that affects many jobs and many lives. I would hope that our government would take a second look at it and give a second thought to supporting this industry.