Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the parliamentary secretary for his answer, with respect, all of which I have heard before, all of which the tobacco producers in my riding and in other ridings have heard before.
It is regrettable, and frankly it is shameful, that it took the government many months before responding to the proposal submitted last year, in 2006, by the tobacco board. It was in February of this year that the minister announced, not in this chamber, that the $1 billion buyout was, to use the minister's phrasing, “too expensive”.
The minister has not yet provided a definite response to tobacco growers as to what the government intends to do. What in concrete, practical, on the ground terms is the government going to do for those tobacco farmers who are teetering on bankruptcy? Unhappily, we have not heard it tonight either.