Madam Speaker, the member talks about doing the right thing. I want to ask him about a very big crisis facing our country, namely the farming crisis on the prairies, the drop in farm income. Farm income is going down to negative levels. It is the biggest crisis since the 1930s.
We now have in Saskatchewan and Manitoba a joint alliance between all the political parties. For example, in my province of Saskatchewan all three political parties and the farm groups have gotten together and are requesting of the federal government an additional $1 billion in terms of emergency farm aid for our province. I am not talking about the AIDA program that is there now. I am talking about an additional $1 billion minimum of farm aid and farm assistance.
It is the largest farm crisis since the 1930s. People are going bankrupt. People are under stress. We have many letters here from children who have written about the stress in their families and the financial pain they are facing.
It has united all three political parties. It has united the farm groups and the chamber of commerce. It is a crisis like I have never seen because unlike the member, I was not here in the 1930s. It is a long time ago.
I want to ask the member whether he is open to helping us put pressure on the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food to use some of the several billions of dollars of surplus that are now accumulating to help farmers stay on the land.
I remind him that every time a farmer is better off in this country, we are all better off. When the farmer is better off, there are more jobs in the towns, cities and villages across the country. When the people have more jobs and the economy is stronger, there is more money for health care, there is more money for tax cuts and there is more money for education.
Whether the member will help us in that lobby is my question.