OTTAWA  –  Leon Benoit, Member of Parliament for Vegreville-Wainwright, rose in the House of Commons on Monday to highlight some of the measures focussed on helping farmers in Budget 2011. An excerpt from his speech as recorded in Hansard is included below.

“Mr. Speaker, I want to speak a little about agriculture and this budget. Of course, there were things in this budget dealing with agriculture. For example, there was money allocated to have consultations and develop a new Growing Forward Two package to replace the current Growing Forward program. This would allow farmers, people in the agriculture business and those people interested across this country to help develop the next stabilization package.

The package we have has worked pretty well and will form a strong base for the second growing forward package. However, there is always room for improvement and we would get the best results if we have people who are concerned and interested in agriculture taking part in this consultation process. I encourage anyone who would like to see change to get involved in the process which starts almost immediately. I am looking forward to having some input into that process as it goes along.

As well, Budget 2011 focuses on supporting innovation as a way to make agriculture more profitable. I think that is a very wise expenditure of taxpayers' money and we have seen some excellent results in recent years. When we look at taxpayers' money that has been leveraged, often with a vast majority of the money coming from the private sector, we have seen results. This allows Canadian farmers to compete with the world very favourably.

More than that, in many cases we have seen Canadian business, farmers and others export these new ideas and products around the world. That is an important part of developing innovation. Not only are agriculture products produced more efficiently as a result of innovation, but exporting innovation around the world is something that certainly broadens agriculture in Canada.

Much of what our government will do in the area of agriculture over the next year really will not show up in this budget, but that does not mean it is any less important. In fact, if we were to look at one area of work that our government is doing that is more important to farmers than any other area, I have no doubt that would be the area of expanding trade in agriculture products around the world.

We have seen our agriculture minister, trade minister and our Prime Minister take a very hands-on and active approach to help develop new markets for our agriculture products. We have seen remarkable results from that. Unfortunately, the agreements have been signed, but the actual passing of some of these trade agreements in Parliament have been slowed down by opposition, in fact, mostly by the NDP.

I strongly encourage members of the NDP who care about farmers and care about agriculture to work with this government from now on and help pass these trade agreements in Parliament so the benefits can be reaped by farmers as soon as possible. That is something I am looking forward to. Nothing done by this government in the area of agriculture is more important than developing those new markets around the world.

There are far more benefits to be gained. We are looking at negotiating pretty broad agreements with the European Union, which is important. We are always looking at how we can get better access to China, to India, to other places. These bilateral agreements will continue to be important. I would argue they will become even more important in the years to come. That is an extremely important area.

There are other areas involving trade that do not only look at exporting Canadian products to other countries, but rather look at importing inputs that farmers use to grow crops, to raise livestock, all of that kind of thing. This would allow those inputs to come more freely into Canada so they can be less expensive and so that we can have access to brand new technology, brand new herbicides, pesticides, and veterinary products here in Canada at the same time our American, European and Australian competitors have access to these products. That is another aspect of improving trade that is extremely important.

Maybe it is not talked about as much, but we saw benefits from the own use program. That program helped farmers bring in herbicides, pesticides, veterinary products from the United States, which allowed them to lower their costs of producing animals and crops substantially. That program helped in a very real and substantial way. We have a lot of room to expand that well beyond what it is now and part of that is coordination. It has been worked on for many years but much is still to be done on coordinating the approval process for new pesticides, herbicides and veterinary products.

That coordination of the approval process between Canada, the United States, Europe and other like countries that have good processes in place now would mean that our farmers would get access to these products that will help them in a very real way, much sooner. I am looking forward to our government continuing to work on that.

As well, there are other things in the budget that would help farmers. They are not aimed specifically at farmers, but they would help them.

To conclude, I want to let farmers know that now is not the time to sit back and become disengaged from the political process. Now is the ideal time to get involved with our government, with their rural MPs, most of whom are in our Conservative caucus. I would ask our farmers to get involved to help move some of these things forward. Together we truly can do a lot that would make things better for our farmers and for agriculture. I am looking forward to that in the next four and a half years, which is the guaranteed mandate of this government.”