Mr. Speaker, if the member wants to take five minutes to ask his questions, I need equivalent time.
With respect to the debt load, this government has been very clear. We agree that personal income taxes in Canada are too high. We have taken steps to address that. Last year 400,000 Canadians were taken off the tax rolls. I could go on.
As far as NISA is concerned, I made it very clear that it is a business decision or an economic decision. For whatever reason, some people made that decision. Eighty-five per cent of participants with eligible production are covered. Well over 85% of producers in Saskatchewan are enrolled in NISA.
As I said earlier, I do not like to see farmers searching for other sources of income. I do not like to see somebody starting up a manufacturing business in the industrial park in Belleville who has to ask one of his family members to provide another source of income.
I will bring it closer to home. My son bought the farm from my wife and I. He is farming 800 acres. He is heavily in debt. He made a personal decision to burn the candle at both ends.
I do not like to see that happen, but he is working off the farm full time. I asked him why he is doing it and he told me he wants to pay his debt and mortgage down sooner. He said that if he did that for a while he would be in a better position to be able to be on the farm full time. That is decision. He made that for his own personal reasons. I do not like to see it happen.
I would like everybody who wants to farm, be a doctor, run a garage or start up a small manufacturing business to be able to do it. I would like to see them all succeed. Unfortunately that is not reality. There is competition out there. There are expenses.
Yes, there is a big debt, but we are now paying down the debt. We reduced the deficit from $42 billion to zero much faster than Canadians thought it could be done. We now have very low inflation. Our interest rates have been below those in the United States for a number of years. Nobody in the world denies that the economic fundamentals in Canada are the best they have been in many, many decades.