Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to respond to my kind colleague.
We have indeed had great co-operation from the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food in connection with scrapie, but there are two things I need to point out.
First, we cannot accept the lack of retroactivity for those sheep farmers who were the first to subscribe to the wholly federal program of a wholly federal agency, and who in so doing had the honesty and courage to, perhaps, save the Canadian sheep industry. We expect them to get the same compensation as others who will come along in future.
The second question raised by my colleague—and I am glad he raised it because that was what I was saying at the end of my speech—is that, unlike the other provinces, Quebec does not have the same measures for its farm safety-net programs, its companion programs, and does not apply them in the same way.
This is so much the case that a departmental employee—Mr. Richardson, if I remember correctly—told the committee that, even if Quebec wanted to take the famous $200 million—and Minister Julien wrote to the Minister of Agriculture to this effect—this would be impossible because the rules established with the federal government are different for Quebec than for elsewhere in Canada.