Agriculture
Thursday June 20, 2002

    Mr. Bill Blaikie (Winnipeg—Transcona, NDP): Mr. Speaker, my question is for the minister of agriculture.

    I want to ask the minister of agriculture why it is that the government refuses to describe the payment it is making today as a trade injury payment when it clearly follows on a trade action by the United States. Is it not because the minister of agriculture and the government do not want to admit their responsibilities when it comes to this problem?

    Hon. Lyle Vanclief (Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, I think the hon. member would stand up and thank the government for the .25 billion announcement this morning to support agriculture and the agrifood industry in this country.

    That announcement this morning is a long term approach to agriculture and has bridge funding and bridge programming to get there to address a number of issues. It is a long term approach to prepare our industry for the future, but also to help it get there, to address the effects of a number of things, including drought, including excess water, and including the actions of other countries. We are there to support our agriculture.

    Mr. Bill Blaikie (Winnipeg—Transcona, NDP): Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance. Is the government not open to the possibility of providing this money on an unconditional basis, of being flexible, as the Canadian Federation of Agriculture has said it should be?

    Does he not understand the fiscal position he is putting have not provinces like Saskatchewan and Manitoba in by making this federal help for farmers conditional on provincial participation?

    Hon. Lyle Vanclief (Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, we are in negotiations with the provinces. When the federal government has been asked by provinces and the industry to support them in the past, the provincial governments have been there too because of the importance of agriculture in each particular province.

    I am confident that because of the importance of agriculture in the province of the hon. member that surely his province will be there to support its industry in the future, as it has in the past.