Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to draw attention to the arrival of farmers from Saskatchewan who will be in the gallery during question period. They moved their protest from the provincial legislature to the House of Commons.
I extend a warm welcome to Arlynn and Lillian Kurtz of Stockholm, Saskatchewan. Lillian, whom I have had the privilege to know in my former life, is on a hunger strike to draw attention to the plight of farmers in western Canada and their desperate need for some equalization payments sooner than later.
For four months the Reform Party of Canada has sponsored about 60 meetings in western Canada known as Action for Struggling Agricultural Producers or ASAP. Over 5,000 farmers in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and British Columbia have attended these meetings and voiced their concerns about failed government programs, frustrating bureaucratic roadblocks and political ignorance and neglect.
The Liberals opposite have responded in their typical fashion. To this day dollars from the ill-fated AIDA program, supposedly in the hands of farmers by Christmas 1999, remain missing in action. The government found money for those impacted by the Red River flood, by the ice storm and those affected by the maritime—