Mr. Speaker, the hon. member obviously does not understand how the system works. Before we can get permission from Treasury Board to actually get the money, we have to demonstrate what it will be used for.
At the beginning of a year when the budgeting is done, plans are there and the money is there. However, before we can actually draw it from the Treasury Board we have to go back with the specific things that we will be using it for. We tell Treasury Board what we expect to need, what our plans are and what our budgets will be for the year.
It is not as simple as the Treasury Board just writing a minister or a department a cheque and saying “Here is the $1.X billion. Go away and do it”. There is a system of checks and balances there.
If I recall, members of the official opposition have said a number of times that they want to see that type of system. That type of system is there. The reason we are here today and why we are having these votes is to move those moneys from point A to point B.
The hon. member talked about the government reacting to things rather than being as proactive as he would like it to be. If we go back to the previous election, the definition of proactivity of members of the official opposition was to remove hundreds of millions of dollars from the agriculture and agri-food budget in Canada. Thank goodness they did not get elected.
We were proactive when nobody saw the expected downturn in the industry coming to the extent that it did. As a government we found the money, an extra $1.1 billion. It is quite a difference, if we compare it to the opposition wanting to remove over $600 million. The farmers of Canada are fortunate that it is a Liberal government and not a Reform government.