Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his thoughtful questions. I appreciate his interest in this matter. We are all very concerned about the government's lack of response on this very important issue.
I want to address the member's last question first about the financial information strategy. It is more than a little ironic that the government would implement it on April 1, April Fool's Day, because I suspect that could speak volumes about how well this plan will work. It will probably work as well as the last one which the government simply did not follow through on. The government did nothing which is why we are in this situation today. It strikes me as well that it is very ironic the government had no idea how much this plan would cost. This is a plan that is supposed to monitor the spending of the government. That is the problem right there.
I think my friend is correct. When the government wants to be efficient it can be coldly efficient. It is coldly efficient at taxing Canadians below the poverty line. Every year auditors swarm like locusts on people who can hardly afford to put bread on the table and they wring every nickel out of their pockets.
I do not know how many businesses have come to me. Colleagues have raised this with me in the not very distant past. The GST people and income tax people have become so much more aggressive than they ever were before. Again they descend like locusts to wring every cent out of business people, afraid that somehow they are going to cheat the government out of a few nickels when they already pay incredibly high taxes.
On the other hand, we know how inefficient the government can be when it suits it. One of the best examples is the AIDA program. Prairie farmers have been sideswiped by low commodity prices due to European and American subsidies. The government's plan is to put in place a 40 page document that would require a Philadelphia lawyer to figure it out. Farmers have to pay $500 to have it filled out. They send them in and in many cases are rejected. In Saskatchewan 62% are rejected. The government has allocated $1.5 billion but has only paid out $400 million. It probably is not going to pay out much more than that. It does not want to pay it out because it does not care about the problem on the prairies. When it suits the government, it can be very inefficient.
The minister across the way who is responsible for the wheat board and sits as a member from the prairies is concerned about what I am saying. He is saying horse feathers. The fact is the minister knows this. As farmers sit in the legislature in Saskatchewan today, I am surprised he is not a bit more concerned about the failure of his government's program to deliver relief on a timely basis. He should be ashamed of his comments. That is all I have to say.