Mr. Speaker, I would like to pose a couple of questions for clarification to the Leader of the Opposition.
In his comments a minute ago he accused the Liberal government of giving a lot of subsidies to farmers in Canada. I am just wondering if what he is saying now is that he feels we should do more. I will address how I think we can assist farmers in the future but I want to ask him if he would square that. He contradicted himself fairly severely.
I wonder if he would comment about the fact that in the lead-up to the last election his party said it would take $640 million out of a number of ministries and another $690 million out of regional agricultural support. If we add the two together it comes to a sizeable number, about 80% of the agriculture and agri-food budget, which includes the funding of $600 million a year at the present time to agricultural support to Canadian farmers. I wonder how the hon. member thought he could remove that much money, add more subsidies and do it with only 15% of the agriculture budget we have now.