Mr. Speaker, to start with, I would like to thank my colleague for his long preamble, which, in spite of my criticism of his government, seemed to support some of my arguments. I would like to get back to his main point which was farm diversification.
I am all for it, except that under the present system, the federal government is funding diversification in western Canada at the expense of Quebec. Which, to some degree, explains why Quebec has been unable to diversify in that area. I could give you many examples and statistics. But I will only talk about lamb production. Quebec has been unable to emulate the west. The sheep population increased by 9 per cent between 1988 and 1991 in Quebec, whereas it went up by 33 per cent in western Canada. Why? Thanks to programs funded by the government at the expense of Quebec.