_V[ednesday,r li‘ebruary_28, 1968

free discussion and the rights of the representatives of the people in this House are callously ignored and yet we are asked to approve money votes through here we don’t know how much. The ultimate plan they say is going to cost a hundred million dollars and possibly up to a hundred and fifty million and yet we’re asked to agree to a plan that we don’t know the first thing about and vote money to carry that plan into effect. We had some evidences last year of information being denied this House which was a flagrant violation of the supremacy of Parliament. Information that should have come to the floor of this House, and we invited that on the broadest possible terms. Now, we’re going to run into another situation this year in this House where we’re going to have a comprehensive plan that ultimately will cost a hundred or a hundred and fifty million dollars and we don’t know what it is. I ask you, as representatives of the people in this Parliament, are you willing to go along with that? Nobody knows what we’re voting on, the people in the country don’t know what is involved? And this is a long term plan. I don’t know when it’s going to come into effect. They say there’s going to be so much each year for the next ten years. What is the situation right now, Mr. Speaker, with regard to agriculture? What do the farm people tell us about agriculture? What has the Minister of Agriculture to tell us about agriculture? The only story that’s coming in from Liberal and Conservative and farmers irrespective of their political stripe is that they are in a state of bankruptcy. What did our good friend across here, from Pownal, tell us yesterday and I want to compliment him on giving a very fine address. He sees these difficulties and he brought them very clearly before this house. Here’s what he said, “The agricultural industry on P.E.I. is in a crisis and unless it gets help soon,” not in a year or ten years but “soon” the industry will be in even greater difficulty. Although the Provinces comprehensive economic develop— ment plan and the financial assistance from the fund for regional economic de- velopment will involve aspects of the Island economy, I hope it will have special help for agriculture. Now, I ask you, Mr. Speaker, as a member of this House what is that help going to mean when a man has left his farm and gone out some- where else, away from this Province and we have lost our citizens and our com- munities will be broken and our schools and the associations we have had in this country all our lives are going to be broken. We can’t afford to lose any more people here and our situation in accordance with this plan, if it’s based on the situation in New Brunswick or even in Nova Scotia, is not on the same basis at all for when they take those people from the northern part of New Brunswick out of these poor areas, take them out of these small farms, they have a place to put them. They have industries that have been developed and they can pull them out and give them jobs in industries but it’s within their own Province. They don’t lose citizens. What is our situation if you take these people off the farms. Have you industries in which to place them? Industry has been demoralized. It’s been des- troyed and we have no openings in industry for the men who come off the farms in this Province. They go to Ontario, Quebec or possibly New Brunswick and it means that our population is going to deteriorate. It means that the economic backbone of this country is going to deteriorate. These are the things I’m afraid of and that’s why I say, Mr. Speaker, that the plan should not go to Ottawa until the people of this Province, and particularly of this Legislature, have had an opportunity to study it in minute detail and decide, as experienced people who’ve been connectd with agriculture both in a supervisory capacity and as practical farmers. whe- ther that plan is going to do the job for them and when it’s going to do it. I appeal to this House to give this matter more careful consideration, to get more of our people that are in these groups, such as the Rural Development Council and the Federation of Agriculture and from the Experimental Farm and from our Agri- cultural Council which has been going for twenty or twenty-one years, a successful organization, to sit down with both sides in this House, with the Government and with the Opposition, and we have good men on both sides. I should not speak for myself, but I know there are good men over there too. Let us sit down together and make a complete and comprehensive study of this plan, that is going to mean the economic salvation of this Province, according to those who are promoting it. And let us get down and see that this plan must come to this Legislature and to the representatives of the people before it is finalized and comes back and is thrown in our laps, whether we like is or not. My honourable friend over here mentioned yesterday something about the Acres Report and I quite agree with my Honourable friend. I haven’t seen too much in that report that gives guidelines for the develop— ment of policies for agriculture in this Province. As far as I see it, they give re-

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