That's good to know.
Robert's point was that he'd like to see us spending a whole lot less on BRM. That has to make us think, Robert. When you said that, I went back to look at the programs. In reality, in the last 16 years we've had 14 different programs, all business risk management. I was there with Andy Mitchell. We basically canned spending on the environment because we had to spend it on business risk management. They ranged through everything from CAIS to TISP to FIP to cattle set-aside—you name it—14 programs in 16 years, all related to business risk management, putting billions of dollars out there.
And yet in the meantime, in the last 25 years our debt load has gone up 300% on Canadian farms, and American debt load in the same time went up 20%. Our income from the market over the last 21 years was $51 billion of net income, but our payments from the federal and provincial governments were $58.4 billion. Out of the market we lost $7 billion. We have to somehow get to a point where the primary producer level is sustainable.
Having said that, when you consider biodiesel, it's amazing that in this country we don't have a national energy strategy that ties it all together; we don't—and I'm not saying their government or ours, because we're both the same in this regard—have a national food security policy in this country.
You made six points, Vince, along the lines of food safety, environment, strategic growth—I didn't quite catch them all, but they'll be on the record. Those are areas that we can spend money on—in infrastructure, etc.—that isn't considered a subsidy, that's considered green under WTO. We're not looking at that. We're going to have to turn this policy on its head somehow.
So I'd ask you this. If you were the minister, what would you do to cut back on what are perceived as subsidies and spend the money in a different way, but at the same time increase support to the farm community so that it makes a difference in terms of family incomes and lives? That's where we're going to have to get to.