Mr. Speaker, people in rural Canada will benefit from having a balanced budget, and some very minor nod on reduced taxes.
The point in the references to agriculture was primarily how much has been slashed from the agriculture and agri-food budget by this government over the past number of years. It had gone from $6 billion in the early 1990s to $2 billion today for a drop of $4 billion. I contrast that in terms of the farming community, especially grain farmers in western Canada who have played an enormous role in helping this government balance its books by exports of grain and oilseeds. They have been rewarded by seeing their grain transportation rates doubling and in some cases even tripling as a result. They are now faced with low commodity prices.
The point I attempted to make is this government has retrenched in terms of its commitment to agriculture and the result has been much lower expectations in the agricultural community.