Mr. Speaker, I thank the minister for his questions. Let me deal with them in the order in which he raised them.
First, my general point was that in the 20th century the record of the Liberal government has been to grant far more subsidies than to grant subsidy relief. The minister can check that out and go through all the subsidies. I am not talking only about agriculture. I am talking about the Liberal government's general record in subsidization. Yes, there has been some removal of subsidies in the agriculture sector in the last number of years. But the overall record of the government has been to resort to subsidies time and time again. My point is that when it is a government with a reputation for subsidization it makes it a poor advocate for subsidy reduction in other countries because they simply point to the government's record and say “you guys are great people to talk”.
The second point with respect to this subsidy question is by leaving NISA, the net income stabilization account, as the primary farm support program we would think the government would be more interested in increasing net incomes during the times when prices are good. If we are to rely on a NISA type program it is stronger when prices are low if we leave more dollars in the pockets of consumers when prices are high. Net income stabilization works better if we leave more income in people's pockets during the boom time. That is why I hope minister would be an advocate of tax relief with the finance minister because that would make the one program he is relying on work better.
The second point the minister made is typical of the questions and reactions of Liberal ministers, half the story. The minister referred to our proposals for reductions in some government spending, including reductions in his department. What he forgot to mention was the tax relief that those reductions when added up across all the departments made possible. Yes, we advocated reductions in some of the overhead spending of the agriculture department, but the net effect to doing that over five years was to deliver $20 billion in tax relief to Canadians, including significant tax relief to Canadian farmers, tax relief greater in its aggregate than any reduction to agriculture.
I suggest the minister read both sides of what we are talking about, the pain of reduction but the benefit of tax relief. We end up with a net benefit and a net benefit to Canadian farmers.