OTTAWA – Leon Benoit, Member of Parliament for Vegreville-Wainwright, rose in the House of Commons today to respond to yesterday’s Speech from the Throne. An excerpt from his speech is below. The full speech is available at www.parl.gc.ca.

“Mr. Speaker, I would like to start today by thanking my constituents from the bottom of my heart for their support in the past election. More than 77% chose to support me and I sincerely thank them for that. I appreciate the great honour they have bestowed on me once again.

“In my constituency the two main industries are oil and gas and agriculture. That is what I want to talk about today. These sectors are the sources of thousands of jobs in my constituency and both of them create jobs for others right across the country.

“The oil and gas industry has been a driving force that has provided wealth for communities in my constituency and really for all of the workers in all of the provinces across this country. This industry is a vibrant one. It can, in fact has, and will continue to meet and exceed the environmental standards that are expected of it.

“Agriculture is the most important long-term and renewable industry not only in my constituency but in Canada. None is more important. I was raised on a mixed farm and am still involved in a grain farm on a crop share basis. Many of my friends and neighbours are farmers.

“Our party cares deeply about farmers because our party has deep roots right across Canada in rural communities. I am proud of that. I am proud of what our government has done to date on agriculture over the past two and a half years and I want to talk about that.”

My colleagues and I have been successful in providing control for gophers; lobbying to extend the own use imports program for glyphosate (and expanded it to a number of other products);  and ensured our cattlemen can continue to bring across the border IVOMEC from the United States. These initiatives alone will save farmers hundreds of millions of dollars.

Benoit acknowledged that food commodity prices in agriculture have dropped quite dramatically over the past couple of months. “They have been affected directly by the financial and economic crisis that we are in today,” stated Benoit. “Farmers have felt the brunt of this crisis probably as much or more than anybody else. For example, just six months ago farmers could have contracted canola for $17 a bushel. Right now they are lucky to get $9 a bushel.”

“We understand the kind of hit that farmers have taken. That is one example of the economic crisis which spills over to every sector of the economy, and I recognize that. It has made things more difficult, although I have to say the grain sector still is a very profitable sector in spite of that.

“The high input cost is of great concern. One thing we have to watch in the House is that those input prices go down, fertilizer, pesticides, that type of thing. Those prices must go down along with the pressure on the economy.

“Those prices should drop along with the price of natural gas and oil. They should drop, but we have not seen much of that yet. I am certainly hoping that we will see more of that before spring. That is critical because with declining prices and with those commodity prices at the level they have been this year, farmers simply are not going to make a go under those circumstances.

“I would like to mention one final thing to do with agriculture and that is the Canadian Wheat Board. I was so delighted to see it mentioned in the Speech from the Throne.

“The agriculture industry has been a consistent driver of the economy. It has created jobs on the prairies and elsewhere across this country. Our farmers have worked tirelessly to develop an industry that is truly remarkable and competitive with those anywhere in the world. They have done remarkable things to make it work.

“However, governments of the past have put in place roadblocks that really hamper the ability of certain farmers to make a profit and to make the kind of marketing decisions they expect to be able to make.

“The Canadian Wheat Board monopoly is one of these roadblocks. Put in place during the war under the War Measures Act, not to get a better price for farmers, just the opposite, but to drive the price down so government could buy grain from farmers for the war effort. Farmers accepted it at that time. There was supposed to be some kind of restitution made that never was. A lot of farmers at the time were upset about that. However, this is 2008 and we still have that monopoly in place.

“Our government has committed to give farmers choice. I want to make it clear that our government has always believed in a strong Canadian Wheat Board, and we still do. However, we believe that farmers deserve the same type of choices in marketing that everyone else deserves and enjoys. We simply want to give farmers the choice to market through the Wheat Board if they so choose or to market without going through the Wheat Board monopoly.

“I am certainly looking forward to the day when I have that option. I sell wheat, barley, canola, peas, lentils and other types of commodities. Other farmers produce them for me because as a member of Parliament, I certainly do not have time to do that. However, I pay my portion of the inputs and I get my portion of the returns. I hope to be looking forward next year to being able to choose to market through the Wheat Board or not.

“I believe I will continue to market some of my wheat through the Wheat Board, but I at least want the choice. That is all we are talking about.

“I want to just mention one other thing that certainly affects agriculture, but affects a lot of other sectors as well, which is internal trade. I want to talk about the Premier of Alberta, Premier Ed Stelmach, who has done a remarkable job in getting together, first, with the Premier and the province of British Columbia, and most recently with Brad Wall, the Premier of Saskatchewan, and who has made great progress in eliminating those barriers to internal trade.

“When I was Critic for Interprovincial Trade, one of the things I heard from more than half a dozen businesses is that because of barriers to trade between provinces, they were moving their head offices to the United States because if they operated out of the United States, they would have easier access to all of the Canadian provinces. That is a remarkable type of situation, unbelievable in a country that has signed up internationally to the free trade agreement and to NAFTA.

“However, good leadership from the federal government can help remarkably and that is what our government has provided, along with premiers like Brad Wall, Ed Stelmach and the Premier of British Columbia. This will move across the country and we will all be better off for that.”