Mr. Speaker, I am thankful for the opportunity to stand on behalf of my constituents of Moose Jaw—Lake Centre—Lanigan, a riding I am very, very proud to represent.

Before I go on, I would like to point out that in about 10 minutes I am going to be followed by another speaker, the member for Essex. I do not want anyone to get confused and think that I have been speaking for 20 minutes. A lot of people get us very mixed up, even the parliamentary photographer, people in our own caucus and CBC reporters. I know I am the better looking of the two.

Today I will be speaking on a private member's bill from a close friend of mine who represents Cypress Hills—Grasslands, and he is doing a great job.

This bill is important to me and to my riding. Not too many people know that my riding is one of the larger ridings in Saskatchewan, and the biggest industry in my riding is agriculture, so what is being brought forward is of utmost importance to those I represent. I will share later on some of the first-hand experiences I have had, what I have seen and witnessed and what benefits this bill would bring to those who are in the agriculture industry.

The city I live in is the city of Moose Jaw. It was founded as a trading post for farmers who were bringing their goods to market. In fact, in 1905 it had the largest flour mill in it, the Robin Hood flour mill. This reiterates the importance of the agriculture industry and the way the agriculture industry has evolved from the horse and cart to tractors to very expensive and very large machines, such as combines.

I have never met a farmer who did not know how to recycle, who did not know how to maximize their dollars. They are up against Mother Nature. They are up against the weather. They are up against time. They are up against seasons. They have challenges. They are being challenged right now with a reduction in fertilizer and an increase in carbon tax. Things are impacting them and are impacting us, as we can see in the grocery stores. However, that is not really what we want to talk about. We want to talk about technology, how it has evolved and how it is impacting farmers.

As I said, I have never a met a farmer who did not know how to maximize. If I were in my riding right now and I said to a farmer that I had seen him take a piece of equipment from a Case tractor and put it on a John Deere, that could actually get me lynched. I really hope that this comment is not going to be clipped and posted, because I did say that once when I was out speaking with many of my constituents from Moose Jaw—Lake Centre—Lanigan, and some faces were very upset with me.

This poses a challenge and it poses a problem, because the price of equipment is going up so much. It is almost a million dollars for a combine. This is essential equipment that farmers rely on in order to not only produce the crop but also to harvest the crop.

I mentioned earlier about time being of the essence. Farmers, if the weather is bad, sometimes cannot go out into the fields, but they still need to get the crop to market. When the weather is good, they need to make sure everything is operating well.

I will give members a first-hand account. Last year, I was in my riding during harvest time, and I was on a John Deere combine with one of my constituents. I had just done a tour of Drake Meats, which is a smoked meat business in Drake, Saskatchewan, and I smelled like smoked meat. The gentleman who was driving the million-dollar combine said, “Do you smell smoke?” I said, “Yes, as a matter of fact I do. I was just doing a tour.” He hesitated, but that answer did not satisfy him. About 30 seconds later, he said, “Do you smell smoke?” I said, “Yes, I have just been on a tour of Drake Meats.” At that point, he stopped the combine and lifted the header, and we both got out of the combine. I took a couple of steps back and watched him walk around.

He went to check the other side of the combine, on the header, and just as he was coming back, boom; there was a big fire, right behind him. It was unbelievable. I yelled, “Fire, fire, fire.” I have never seen a man move so fast in my entire life, to go grab an extinguisher. I went and grabbed another extinguisher, and we put out the grass fire. I have to be honest: I felt like a rock star and a hero. There were three other combines. They do not move very fast, but the drivers saw what was going on and they showed up, just in time to get pictures and photo ops of me helping to put out the fire. Again, it is on record.

Time is of the essence. What happened there was that the header caused a fire. It is a challenge farmers have. It is about timing and it is about interoperability. Some people who are watching tonight might not understand the challenges farmers have in dealing with modern technology. I will give an example that might help them relate. A Tesla we see on the roads needs a certain type of charging station. Other electric vehicles need a different charging station, which does not work for the Tesla, so there is a problem.

What we really want to do here, with this private member's bill, is to actually give power back to those who have purchased those million-dollar combines so they could actually fix them, work on them or interchange some of the technology required for them to bring in the harvest.

While I was out in the riding last year, I met a gentleman who had a John Deere riding lawnmower. That is not that expensive, but a screw had fallen out and he could not fix it. He called up the John Deere dealership, and the dealership sent out a technician, who put the lawnmower on a trailer and took it to the dealership, where the screw was fixed. Then it was brought back. That cost him $500. Technology is getting beyond farmers' being able to fix equipment in the fields.

I will be supporting this bill, because I believe it would be beneficial to those in my riding. It would be beneficial to farmers who are under pressure and under attack. They need help, so I am asking my colleagues in the House to support my friend, the member for Cypress Hills—Grasslands in order to get this bill passed so we can make things better for farmers, better for people in my riding.

I appreciate the member's efforts. I appreciate some of the things I have actually learned through reading this, as well as the fact that there seems to be quite a bit of support, not only from our caucus but from others across the floor.

Fraser Tolmie

$560,463.00