Wednesday, February 28, 1968

I am glad he mentioned that, I wasn’t going to mention it.

Now just keep quiet and I will let you have your turn after a while. I want to get this across to this House. That they cut out the premiums on cheese. Why did they? Can you tell me why? If you are right they must have been wrong. Why did they do it? Because they were not interested in Prince Edward Island, and not interested in the Port at Summersidc or anything else that developed here for the interests of our people. I wonder what study on cheese has been made with regard to market openings? Why in the name of time has the government to take up the slack for the Federal Government? If that isn’t a rather peculiar attitude. They should have come out fighting, fighting to have that subsidy maintained and not charge it to the hard-pressed taxpayers of this Province. That is my contention. There are. to my mind. excellent opportunities in the United States. Mr. Minister, for our cheese. What do they want? They want raw milk cheese. But they want it held in storage for about nine months and for every pound of cheese we could send into the United States, the Federal Government is paying six and one—half cents a pound subsidy for export cheese from Canada. Here’s the opportunity. What is the government doing to promote that? Why don’t they go to the cheese fac- tories and say we will give you assistance on the manufacture of this kind of cheese. and on the maintenance of storage so that we can get this cheese into the United States. I believe that the cheese men are endeavouring to make some move in this at the present time.

Now this is again a marketing problem, Mr. Premier. Where is our marketing agent? We hardly have heard tell of him and he is a good man since this govern- ment came in power. Down in Newfoundland there is cheese coming in from Quebec and possibly elsewhere. Over in Nova Scotia they are producing almost as much cheese as we have, and our market has been tremendously circumscribed as a result. Our marketing agent should be on the road three-quarters of his time. not only selling cheese in Newfoundland and in Nova Scotia, but down to the United States to find out what are the conditions there, what openings might we have in the United States for the cheese that we can manufacture in Prince Edward Island and do a good job. Dairying has taken an awful “wallop” insofar as this Province is concerned. Dairy cattle, numbers have abruptly gone down last year which indicates a lack of interest in this industry, and I think that possibly the suggestion in the Draft Address that they are going to do something for dairy cattle is a very wise one.

The statement that governments cannot affect prices is really senile. What effect has an aggressive market contact on prices? What about supporting sub- sidies? What about the removal of hog, lamb and cheese premiums? What about the change of policy in potatoes? Something that is now overdue. What has been done on tariffs? What about the opening of markets? The difficulty has been the lack of “know—how,” and the association of visionary investigations which it is en- deavouring to develop and launch at the present time. What about our strawberry growers, Mr. Minister? Nova Scotia went out last year and they assisted to a very great degree the export of strawberries from the Province of Nova Scotia to the United States, and if you will read the record it states that good berries last year brought as high as fifty-five cents per box, netting farmers in Nova Scotia over forty cents after all costs had been deducted. The Nova Scotia Department of Agriculture was helping in this work. What is our Department doing? This man, as I say, should be on the road continuously both in Canada and in the United States to sell these products.

What happened to our government inspectors in fruit grading and vegetables at the plants which we supplied in previous years, in whom our producers have con- fidence? Why were they done away with? There is a lack of confidence and loss of money at the present time. I would like to know what reaction there would be if we took inspectors off our hogs and potatoes. These are matters that I feel require a change in policy on the part of this government. They say they put fifteen thou- sand dollars to develop silos. That was a most amazing thing and they are going to increase it. They built two silos last year; you gave subsidies on two silos. Out of seven thousand farmers in the Province of Prince Edward Island they helped two by paying a subsidy of two silos. I wonder how long it will take them at that rate to get two or three thousand Prince Edward Island dairymen building silos. Do you realize that the cost of a silo and its equipment would be in the vicinity of $30,000?

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