However the Speech from the Throne does little to address the problems facing these farmers, especially for those farmers devastated by BSE in non-managed markets. It is ironic that 46 years after Alf Hales [Member of Parliament for Wellington/Wellington South from 1957-1974] rose in this very House to speak up on behalf of beleaguered farmers, I now do the same with one big difference: the plight of today's farmer is far, far worse than it was in 1958.

Speaking in January 1958 on a farm bill introduced by the Diefenbaker government, Alf Hales stated in Hansard that the average selling price of steers for the 10 year period was $21.80 a hundredweight. That was in 1958 dollars. Today that would be $150 per hundredweight.  The base support price set by the government for farmers in 1958 was $17.44 per hundredweight. Even then farmers struggled. Today that would be a base support price of $120 per hundredweight.  The government's agricultural policy does not even come close to that kind of support.

Because of the government's farm policy in non-managed markets, the average family farm is no longer economically viable. The average farmer can no longer make ends meet and must rent hundreds if not thousands of acres to achieve the economies of scale necessary for a very modest profit.

We are creating a new kind of feudalism in this country where landowners rent their farmland out to impoverished tenant farmers. This is a shame in a country like Canada. We should and we can do better."