Mr. Speaker, first I wish to congratulate the member for Kindersley-Lloydminster especially on the fact that he brought forward the position of the Reform Party on agriculture.
I also come from Saskatchewan where agriculture still remains our most important industry. There is a lot of coffee shop talk about what the Reform platform on agriculture really means. Today I heard more detail about the program of the Reform Party concerning agriculture.
I entirely agree with the hon. member that much of the existing systems should really be wiped out. They are a bureaucratic mess. They create more uncertainty for many of our producers in trying to figure out whether they should apply or whether they qualify. Quite often they do not know until the next crop year. It just creates a whole bunch of uncertainty.
Part of the problem with the existing system is that it really rewards the bigger producers. Approximately 75 per cent of the tax dollar that goes into agriculture goes to around 25 per cent of the producers. When the payments are based on seeded acres or on so many bushels then the bigger the one is, the more subsidy and support one receives.
We feel that to maintain a viable rural community one has to maintain the medium sized family farms. That is why our election proposals had a basic cost of production for a certain number of bushels. If one was bigger the rest was done at his or her own risk.
Does the Reform Party also encompass the notion of a cap to ensure that the tax dollar that goes to agriculture gets more evenly distributed among all of the producers?