Thank you, Chair.
I love these imaginary scenarios about the single mother under the poverty line. About the only thing that hasn't happened to her yet is that her dog was run over, or something like that. It's like a bad country and western song.
It's unbelievable in the sense that the minister has turned himself into almost a pretzel, when you think about his quotes when it comes to the agricultural census. He said,The argument obviously to farming associations and to farmers is, “You fill out the form, it'll help the government help you in your farming activities.”
But I guess that doesn't apply for the other, urban, Canadians. So I'd like to have your opinion about whether the minister has it right on the farming, by keeping it mandatory and keeping penalties. Ironically, he's making the agricultural community different from every other community, because they've gotten a special treatment of having to continue to have a compulsory long-form agricultural census, with fines and penalties, unlike other Canadians.