Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I appreciate the opportunity to take up where I left off last meeting, and I expect to have a bit of a discussion after this. I think we'll probably have some amendments to the motion, so we'll be able to discuss those as well.
I think it's important, as I did last time, to read out the positions of the three opposition parties with regard to the family farm options program. We may come back to that a little later, but everyone was reminded that not one of the three parties supported the family farm options program. They actually were giving the minister advice that this does not meet the needs of farmers and it needed to be shut down and changed. The minister, because he is a person who listens to the farm community, chose to listen to the opposition this time, and apparently that was a mistake, because now they're accusing him of making a mistake when he has taken their advice.
I want to talk about the framework of agriculture that we've established over the last year and a little bit that Canadian farmers have come to appreciate. We are a government that has invested $4.5 billion in the agriculture industry. I want to talk a little bit about some of the things we've done since we've come to power.
One of the things we did, actually before we were even elected, was to make a campaign promise to Canadians that we were going to bring in a grain and oilseeds payment for them. That was a promise that had also been made by the LIberals, but of course it was never kept. So it was kind of ironic after the election when we kept that and they tried to claim it was somehow their money and their promise. But farmers were not fooled. They knew that the $755 million that we brought forward was from this government, and in fact they've been very supportive of that program.