Thank you very much for the question. I think the thrust of that question is whether there is still a need for a Farm Credit Corporation in this country. I am going to say yes, very much, in the affirmative. On some of the things that you are talking about concerning confidence in our economy, we are doing those things in a positive way as well.
The problem with financing in agriculture is the thing that I talked about which is the necessity for long term capital. Generally speaking, our capital markets have not addressed that, even in the residential mortgage business today. I can remember when everybody had a five year mortgage. Today it is down to two years or three years and people are playing around with that. That is another problem with residential mortgages.
The United States has 30-year mortgages. Canada cannot come up with anything better than a five-year mortgage. It seems to be a dilemma of our capital markets. They are not large enough and strong enough to be able to address that concern.
We have a parallel situation in industry with the industrial development bank. In spite of what we might say-they have had a lot of management as all other banks have had-generally speaking the industrial development bank has been successful at addressing the issue of the need for long term capital. If private industry would come along and take that over we would all be very happy about it. The reality is that they are not prepared to take the risk.
In answer to the member's specific question, we still need something like the Farm Credit Corporation. Perhaps we should open up its doors. The hon. member talked about farmers who are investing overseas. In my area we would not have such a luxury. Perhaps too many subsidies are being directed to the member's area so these people have that kind of luxury.
They might invest in something like a farm credit corporation. That is a possibility. Perhaps we can cross the line and partially privatize it. Everybody wants to address the concerns of farmers for long term capital.