Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for that question.
I believe that people in the farm organizations are looking at this and saying “We do not like this, but it is the best we think we can get at this time and we will settle for it”. I respect them for doing that.
It seems to me that our role as an opposition party would be to squeeze as much as we can out of the legislation for farmers. I am quite surprised, frankly, that the Canadian Alliance members are not trying to do the same thing. I wonder if this is not because they have an ideological predisposition which hampers them.
Every time we get into any situation where we want to support farmers, all Canadian Alliance members can talk about are tax reductions. As a matter of fact, to use another example, the New Democratic Party caucus on the farm income issue has been arguing strenuously for the last two and a half years that we have to support farmers in their time of need.
The Canadian Alliance, which was until now of course the Reform Party, in its taxpayer budget of 1997—and I have it in front of me, but I will not hold it up because that would be using a prop—would take $1.2 billion out of the departments of agriculture, forestry and fisheries. This is how those members want to help farmers.
When we ask who speaks on behalf of farmers, I am not about to say that we speak on behalf of farmers, and I would hope members of the Canadian Alliance would not say they speak for farmers, although they always do. I think the question we might want to ask is, why are they not proposing the kinds of policies that would help farmers? That is a question they should ask. I ask again if it might have anything to do with the corporate friends they keep, including Canadian National.