Mr. Speaker, whilst I have not received a response, I certainly hope to receive it in the near future.
Members on the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food voted down motion after motion which I brought forward to hold hearings across the country on safety nets. They refused to go to southwestern Ontario, which is the single biggest agriculture producing province in Canada. I can only conclude from that that the minister from Toronto and other ministers from the area thought that if they could keep the Canadian Alliance away from the people of Ontario it would be an out of sight/out of mind situation. Looking back, that seemed to be the whole objective of denying the standing committee the opportunity to travel to southwestern Ontario to talk directly with farmers.
That shows the crassness of the political objectives of this government. The farmers' interests come second, third or fourth. The government's political objectives are to get re-elected and to keep politicians from other parties out of southwestern Ontario.
I am proud to say that the Canadian Alliance went to southern Ontario. We held six meetings. A lot of people who came to the meetings, who were of all political persuasions, questioned the representation they were getting from their members of parliament.