The beef industry is in trouble right across the country. In the potato industry in P.E.I. over the last couple of weeks the two major processors cut back substantially on their contracts for the new year. What will people do with that land base? What is the government doing to assist these producers?

    The bottom line, which seems the government fails to recognize, is that Canadian farmers are competitive. They are among the best in the world. They are extremely efficient. However, what we lack in this country called Canada, what we lack for the farm community and primary producers as compared to the rest of the world is a competitive agriculture policy. We lack a policy that will assist those producers through safety nets in times of need.

    In the past when we have raised questions in the House about the government's hog industry loan loss reserve program, the minister has often quoted a guy by the name of Fergus Littlejohn, a producer in Ontario, using him to try to justify a program that really in effect now is seen to be an abject failure. Mr. Littlejohn stated in the February 11 Western Producers in an article by Barry Wilson:

This program, meaning the industry loan loss reserve program, is not the bridge the government said it would be. The state of the industry continues to deteriorate and more producers are losing everything.

    We are losing the hog industry. You are no doubt seeing it in your riding, Mr. Speaker. Certainly, as the Minister of Transport, Infrastructure and Communities suggested, he is hearing from producers too. All the loan loss reserve program really does, as I have said in the House and I will say again, is one of the best Ponzi schemes every taken up within this country, because the primary producer borrows money from a chartered bank if he or she is considered a viable operation and it is guaranteed by the Government of Canada, but the first condition of the loan is that they must pay off the advance payment program. Who gets paid? The Government of Canada, and producers end up carrying more debt. Certainly, that is one thing they do not need.

    I do not expect many people in the House realize that Canada's producer debt is about four times on average what it is in the United States. Farm debt is at $59 billion, increased $9 billion over the short term that the government has been in power. That is just unacceptable. We are losing in this country close to 5,000 farmers each and every year. Hon. member should think about that.

    The motion is talking about the need for economic growth and jobs and we are losing 5,000 farmers per year. Every hog that is produced and every beef animal that is produced we are losing money on it. We should think of the lost economic opportunity, the lost spin-off, and as farmers go out of business and processing plants start to close because of lack of volume or lack of government policy in this country to make our processing industry competitive.

    We were trying all of November and December to get the government to implement a specified risk materials program which would pay the processing industry $31.70 an animal so that they could be competitive with the United States. If the government had implemented that at the little cost of $24 million, then the price for over 30 months cattle would have come up about 20¢ for primary producers. Can hon. members imagine what that would have done for Canadian producers and what it would have done for the creation of jobs and keeping our slaughter industry growing in this country? Instead, the government failed to implement what producers, the Dairy Farmers of Canada, Canadian Cattlemen's Association and the processing industry all asked and demanded that the minister do. He just plainly did not act.